


What The Water Gave Us

by ReaperWriter



Series: These Lines Across My Face [5]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: And Basically Gets It, And More Found Family, Angst, Booker Accepting Responsibility, Booker needs therapy, Bringing Quynh Back into the Fold the Hard Way, But Still Getting Support, F/F, Found Family, Gratuitous Time on a Farm, Gwyn is a BAMF, M/M, Not a Relationship I Intended When I Started This But Here We Are, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:48:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 34,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26370655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ReaperWriter/pseuds/ReaperWriter
Summary: Booker has two older immortal women show up at his apartment in the same day. Things go to shit from there.or...Booker meets Gwyn, Quýnh gets revenge and finds it hollow, Booker helps someone and gets the help he needs to accept responsibility in return, and things ends in a much better place than they start.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: These Lines Across My Face [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1852702
Comments: 18
Kudos: 77





	1. Time It Took Us To Where The Water Was

**Author's Note:**

> You know, I hadn't quite imagined this role for Gwyn when I created her, but as her story unfolded, it made sense that she and Booker ended up in a relationship like this (not that kind of relationship! she still Aro/Ace!). I ended up really fond of him and their dynamic by the time I was done.
> 
> Title and Chapter Titles from What The Water Gave Me, by Florence+The Machine
> 
> TW: Gwyn and Booker talk a lot about his mental health, and what is some pretty clear suicidal ideation. Please be gentle with yourself if this is triggering.

When Booker woke up on his one hundred and eighty fifth day of exile, his plan had been simple. Breakfast. Wandering the city poking about and cataloging how it had changed until the hour became reasonable for him to take a seat in a bar and begin drinking. Continuing to drink and maybe eat something until it was time to buy a bottle and wander home to drink himself to sleep. Same as the previous one hundred and eighty four days.

Rationally, he knew this wasn’t what the others had in mind when they sent him off on his own. They wanted him to work on himself. To sit with his actions and become...merde, he didn’t know. Better? More alive? Less of a walking corpse, perhaps? And he planned to honor that, he did.

But first, he would take this year to grieve. For his wife and children. And Andromache, who he would never see again. Who he had shot and nearly killed in an effort to give her what he thought they both wanted, and instead had almost destroyed them all. To mourn for his second family, now lost to him for a century.

As he stumbled up the last stair, the mostly empty bottle of cheap whiskey slipped from his hand and shattered at his feet. Florid french curses slipped from his lips as he stepped past it, slumping onto the stairs up to the next floor. He’d have to get the little dust pan and hand broom from under his sink and clean it up or the landlord would charge him.

He closed his eyes for a moment, wondering where the others were. What they were doing. If Joe and Nicky were sleeping okay yet. If Nile had worked through leaving her family behind. If Andy...God, would they even tell him if Andy fell on a mission? 

He pushed himself to his feet, digging out the antiquated key and reaching for the handle when he realized the door was open a crack.

In an instant, the alcohol in his system evaporated in the face of adrenaline as he pulled the gun from the holster at the back of his pants under his jacket and brought it up, pushing the door open.

The woman wore red, startling as a poisonous flower against his stark, undecorated apartment. Her back was to him as she stood at his sink. “Booker,” she said with the barest trace of an accent and his blood ran cold. She finished running water into one of his few clean glasses and then turned, raising it to her lips as she smiled at him like a predator who cornered her prey. “It is nice to finally meet you.”

He gaped at her. He’d last seen her as he’d seen her for years, trapped in her iron tomb under miles of sea water, lost in rage and torment. The dreams didn’t come every night. Not even every other night. He had plenty of nightmares to torment his sleep. The deaths of his wife and children. And now new, fake phantoms. Andy bleeding out on Copley’s carpet. Nile strapped to a gurney in Merrick’s lab of horrors or horribly, permanently dead from her leap from the skyscraper. Joe and Nicky murdered with the cure he hoped to achieve to keep Merrick’s proprietary secret. And in flashes, some woman he didn’t know that he’d choked up to a fever dream. 

“Impossible. You’re...You were lost at sea.”

“Is that what they told you?” She stepped further into the room and he mirrored her, leaving the door open to his left. “That I was lost?”

“They?”

“Nicolo. Yusuf. Andromache.” Her tone didn’t change, speaking to him like a patient teacher to a dull child, but her eyes flashed and the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. “Is that the lie they’ve told you? I was lost when they abandoned me.”

“They didn’t…”

Before he could finish the sentence, footsteps from heavy boots echoed on the stone of the steps outside, then stopped just outside the door. 

“Sébastien?” a woman’s voice called cautiously from just outside the door, the accent lilting. “Sébastien, êtes-vous ici?”

The woman across from him’s eyes widened and the predator’s smile grew. 

Booker had no idea who stood on the other side of that door, but his guest clearly did. He barely managed a step before the door swung open and a woman stepped through. Young, younger even then Nile, dressed like she was stopping by to check on an uncle before heading to a punk show with friends, half her head shaved short and blunt cut on the other side all of it dyed raven’s wing black. Black studded leather jacket with patches, a black Ramones concert shirt, black jeans, black boots. Even her makeup trended to black, except for purple lipstick. 

“Sébastien?” she asked, smiling. Then her gaze caught the gun and turned to follow it’s barrel. The smile slipped from her face, leaving shock in its place. She turned from him, taking one step at his uninvited guest. “Quỳnh.”

“Gwynog.” 

Before the newcomer could take another step, a throwing knife appeared in Quỳnh’s hand and left it in the blink of an eye. 

“Merde,” Booker hissed as it sank into the throat of the young woman. 

Her eyes didn’t leave Quỳnh’s as the blood spilled down her neck, soaking into the shirt. Her knees buckled and she went down in a heap on his floor.

“How convenient,” Quỳnh purred as Booker turned to the body for just a moment, watching life leave the young woman’s warm brown eyes.

He didn’t hear the silenced bullet that took him in the temple and dropped him to the floor next to her.

***

His neck didn't appreciate waking propped up against the hard metal wall of a shipping container. And his head didn't appreciate whatever Quỳnh drugged him with to keep him incapacitated long enough to get him here. They worked enough human smuggling cases that he recognized the basics of the set up. Chemical toilet in one corner bolted to the floor. A couple flats of bottled water and boxes of the meal bars hikers used in the other. A few packs of batteries on top so they could change out the ones in the cheap LED lights illuminating the space until those ran out. 

And lying in the middle of the floor four or so feet away from him, deathly still, a pile of black clothes, black hair, and still skin. No breath. No movement. 

Quỳnh had called her Gwynog, and he heard a story or two from the others years ago. Enough to know that the woman they’d called Gwyn disappeared during the Terror and they’d assumed she’d died her final death alone. That she hadn’t been a warrior. That he didn’t dream of her as he had the others. That grief consigned her to tales told only occasionally like Lykon. Like Quỳnh. The lost.

Apparently the lost were being found again.

But she had gone down first. She should have been back up.

Moving carefully, he inched toward her, looking for wounds. Maybe Quỳnh had accidentally given her that final death they’d believed she’d found years ago, and then locked him in here with her corpse. That would make his captivity unpleasant.

Just as he got close, the girl gasped. And then seized, her body going rigid before jerking hard against the metal of the floor. Booker tried to reach her, help her, but there was a sickening wet crunch and she stilled again.

He sighed. Poor thing. Turning her over, he watched as the bloody scalp laceration began healing itself. “Come on then,” he muttered, gathering her up and dragging her back over to the wall. At least if he was holding her when she came back to life, she wouldn’t hurt herself as badly if she seized again.

It took a little less time, maybe five minutes, before a small gasp followed a groan and a shudder. No seizure rocked the diminutive body this time though. Christ, his beloved wife had been small, a slip of a girl when he married her. Holding this woman with her head resting on his thigh unlocked muscle memory he’d long since forgotten.

“Fuck,” she muttered in a thick Welsh lilt, eyes blinking open for only a second before screwing shut.

Booker huffed out a snort. That wasn’t a word his wife had ever used.

“Glad I’m amusing you, Sébastien,” the woman added, bringing a hand up to shield her eyes. “Hopefully I’m not actively bleeding on you.”

“Not actively, though your head is still tacky from striking it on the floor, and the front of your jacket and t-shirt are pretty blood soaked from the knife to the throat earlier.”

“Son of a bitch.” She brought her free hand up, feeling at the crunchy dried blood that soaked the shirt. “This was an original tour shirt.” 

“You’re what, a millennium and a half and you can’t get blood stains out?”

“It's harder with vintage textiles.”

Booker honest to God snorted. “This is one of the weirdest conversations I’ve ever had.”

“Then Andromache neglected your education.”

He stiffened at that. “Look, you shouldn’t probably be here.”

“I don’t think either of us should be here.” She made an abortive move to sit up, groaned, and collapsed back against his thigh. “Fuck, I hate GHB.”

“How do you know that’s what they used?”

“I was still practicing medicine when it was just hitting the club scene. I...acquired some and overdosed on it so I could understand it better.” She moved her hand, wrinkling her nose before attempting to squint into the light again. “It’s the only drug people tend to use for this sort of thing that makes me come back from the dead seizing and leaves me with a migraine for an hour or two after.”

“You overdosed on purpose?” Booker asked, appalled.

“Science,” she shrugged.

“And what do you mean this sort of thing?”

“Kidnapping. That’s what this is. Or have you tried the door, and we’re free to go?”

He had not. That...was mildly embarrassing. “You were my first concern.”

“Tilt me up against the wall. I shouldn’t seize again.”

“Bossy.”

“Respect your elders,” she shot back, then winced as he tipped her upright. “Bollocks.”

Booker pushed himself up and walked to the unblocked end of the shipping container. Trying the door, he found it sealed from the outside. “No luck here.”

“Weapons?” she asked, head tilted back and eyes still closed.

Booker checked. His pistol was gone. So was the small back up he kept in his right boot and the folding knife he kept in his left. “No.”

“Hmmm.” She moved, patting herself down as he made his way to the far end of the container, fetching them each a bottle of water and a meal bar. When he came back, she had managed to open her eyes, though the furrows in her brow spoke of pain, even with the slightly shit eating grin on her face. “The problem with not seeing someone in a few hundred years is you assume they haven’t changed.”

Then she laid out items in front of him one by one. A decent sized switchblade. A retractable riot baton. And a pair of brass knuckles. 

“Merde,” he muttered. “Aren’t you supposed to be a pacifist nun?”

“Even my Lord understands that sometimes, a defense of others must be made.” She shrugged. “Sorry I am fresh out of firearms. I dropped my bags off in a luggage locker and came to find you before I made plans.”

Booker shook his head, sliding down the wall next to her so the little cache of weapons was hidden between them. There were no cameras unless they were well hidden and if they were, there was nothing to be done about it. He handed her the water and food.

“You shouldn’t have been coming to find me. The others wouldn’t like it.”

“They weren’t thrilled. Well, some of them. Nile seemed on board,” she said and his head snapped around to look at her. “But I’ve learned a thing or three about persuasion. They understood in the end.”

“They know you’re here?”

“They do. I saw them three days ago.”

“Are they...are they okay?”

“I think so. I was a bit of a shock for them.” Her smile dimmed. “I’m sorry for that. And for not meeting you sooner. But they seemed well. They were headed out for a project when we split up.”

“So they weren’t following you to Paris?”

“No.” She frowned. “Not immediately anyway. We were supposed to touch base when they finished the project, but I didn’t have a time table yet.”

They sat in silence at that thought for a moment. Finally, Booker sighed.

“What do I call you, anyway?”

“Gwyn, if you like. Or Gwynog, if you want to be formal.” She shrugged. “Joe will sometimes call me Fatima, because he thought Gwyn sounded too much like…” She stopped.

“Like her name.”

“Yes.” Gwyn nodded at him. “And you? Do you prefer Booker? Or Sébastien.”

“They call me Booker.”

“For le Livre, yes. But what would you prefer. I am not the others, and names have power. If you’d like someone to call you Sébastien again, I am happy to. If you wish to be Booker with me as well, so be it.” She tilted her head, a sort of half shrug he’d seen Joe do so many times it made his heart ache. “Or pick something entirely new. I am a blank slate.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why are you here? Why are you a blank slate?” He squeezed the meal bar in his hand, squishing it like a stress ball. “If you’ve seen the others, then you know about Mer...what I did.”

“I saw what you did in my dreams, Sébastien.”

Merde. Merde, fuck, shit, Goddammit. 

“Then why are you even here? My sentence is one hundred years of solitude.”

Gwyn reached over and slowly pulled the crushed package out of his hand, sliding her own into it. “Because you may have betrayed the others, but you didn’t betray me. I didn’t sentence you to that.”

Booker grimaced, her words striking him like a blow to the sternum. “If I had known about you, I would have betrayed you too. I betrayed Nicky and Joe, and they’re like brothers to me. I fucking adore Andy, and I shot her.”

“Maybe. But I exiled myself years ago. I’ve spent two hundred years in solitude. And I did all right because with my faith, I was never truly alone.” She paused, squeezing his hand tightly. “But I stayed away because I believed the four of you were well. And you weren’t. If I’d come back sooner, perhaps I could have helped you learn to carry this burden. And maybe none of it would have happened.”

“Or you’d have been strapped to a table right beside them.”

“Perhaps. But the past is the past. We can’t change it. We can only learn from it and do better.” She paused glancing off into the distance for a moment before bringing her attention back to him. “I’m not offering to be by your side for the next hundred years, Sébastien. And I can’t give you absolution. I’m offering you friendship. Someone to reach out to. To lean on when you need it. Someone who knows what it feels like to lose hope and have to claw your way back to it again. But the choice has to be yours.”

Booker sat there, a lump in his throat. He nodded. “Okay.”

“Bien. Now, do you prefer I call you Sébastien or Booker.”

He thought about it. “Sébastien.”

“Bien.” She leaned into him. “Would you like to tell me about your life before, Sébastien?”

Swallowing against the lump, Booker took a long sip of water. “I was born on the outskirts of Paris.”

***

“Do you remember your family?” Booker asked. The last day had passed in them talking, and to his initial shame, Booker crying. He’d done his best through the years to hide that from the others. To not burden them. To be the warrior they needed him to be. 

Gwyn, who’d managed to fight off her headache, had somehow tucked his greater height into her side like a child as he’d wept, singing a soft lullaby in a language he didn’t know as her fingers combed gently through his hair. His maman had done the same, when he’d been small. She didn’t need him to be a warrior. She didn’t seem to need him to be anything.

“My first family, you mean?” Her accent thickened a little, sounding sleepy. They’d drifted off for a while, waking again to eat and drink and use the toilet in turn. Now they were sitting shoulder to shoulder again. “I do. My mother least well, she died when I was little. But her hair was like mine, and my father used to say my singing voice sounded like hers. And my father was a landholder and a warrior, a big stout barrel of a man. I had two brothers and a sister who lived to grow up. And I had the holy sisters who followed me into orders when I took my vows.”

“Doesn’t it ever grieve you that they’re dead and gone and you’re still here?”

Gwyn leaned her head on his arm, so he felt it when there was a soft shrug. “I do grieve them. Just as I would have if I’d lived to be eighty or ninety in a normal life and they’d all passed before me. But grief is like…”

She paused for a long moment. Maybe she was trying to translate some difficult metaphor from a language she assumed he didn’t know. Maybe she’d lost her train of thought. That happened sometimes with Andy when she’d get philosophical. Though usually they were drinking much harder shit than water.

“Do you know what sea glass is, Sébastien?” she asked finally.

Booker barked out a laugh. “The stuff they put in jewelry and sell to tourists?”

“That they do. But sea glass happens when glass gets broken and knocked into the sea. At first, the glass is sharp and will cut you to ribbons. That’s fresh grief. But with time and the tide, it’s tumbled over the rocks and sand until it’s smooth. That’s old grief.” She turned her head to look up at him. “If you protect your grief and hold it close, the sharp edges remain ready to slice you. But if you let yourself live and give it time, the sharpness wears until you can remember the good times more than the pain.”

The same painful ache welled up in his throat again. “I’m not sure I can.”

“I wasn’t sure I could either. But I did. So have Nicolo and Yusuf.”

Booker scoffed. “They have each other.”

“But they had families too, before the war that took them.”

Booker blinked down at her. “They never said.”

“Did you ever ask?”

He remained silent at that.

“Well, hopefully you’ll have the chance someday.” She reached down, taking his hand and holding it. “Now, would you like to hear the story of how my brother Branui got angry at my brother Hwyel, and decided to grease his sheep with lamp oil?”

His laugh is a little wet and there are tears in his eyes. “This I have to hear.”

“It started when Hywel flirted with my brother’s intended Angharad. Mind you, Hwyel would flirt with a rock, so he meant no offense, but Branui took it…” and she was off, spinning a story light and easy on people she loved and a time beyond his reckoning and Booker, to his surprise, smiled. 

Days past in a pattern. Fits of sleep, careful ration of the supplies. Stories of his time with the others and alone. Of his family. Of Gwyn’s time with them before him, and her own alone. Some stories brought laughter. Some tears. On the fourth day, according to the watch they’d left on his wrist, she told him softly of Paris and the Terror, it’s aftermath. 

“Coming to find you is the first time I set foot there in over two hundred years,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry,” he said. His arm had draped around her shoulders, holding her close. The weather had turned colder outside the container and they had no heat within. They stayed pressed together except when using the toilet to conserve body heat. “You’d be safe but for me.”

“Or I would have been with the others, and it would have been a matter of time. I don’t regret coming to you, Sébastien.”

Booker stiffened. “You think she’s going after the others?”

“You didn’t think she would?” Gwyn sighed softly and seemed to shrink against him, becoming even smaller. “I forget you didn’t know her before. I love her, but of the four of them, the warriors of us, Quỳnh was the one who would hold a grudge. Maybe because her first death came at the hands of a betrayal. Maybe because feuds and revenge were a thing she grew up learning, I don’t know. But we left her there. I don’t expect her forgiveness.”

“Joe and Nicky said there was no choice.”

“No good choices. We’d exhausted every lead, spent decades dredging and searching anywhere that seemed like a possibility. We nearly lost Nicolo and Yusuf to storms overboard more than once.” She closed her eyes, then scrubbed under them with her free hand. “We could have kept searching, but the futility was also destroying Andromache. And I prayed everyday for guidance and could get none. There was no hope of finding her then.”

“Then?”

“I...I assumed she died. I only really dreamed of you in all the years I was gone. Just flashes. And you only spoke of her a little those first few years and then no more.” Something like a small sob escaped her. “If I had known...fuck, if I had known, with all the new science of the last one hundred years, I’d have been funding searches. Sonar. Remote submarines. Something. I’d have tried to find her. When Nile told me last week, I started putting things into motion with my contact.”

“What do you think she’s planning?”

Gwyn didn’t answer. Just turned into his side and cried.

***

The entire shipping container moved on the sixth day. Thank fuck the toilet remained bolted in place, because Booker, Gwyn, and the supplies went sliding across the floor. It rose from the ground, tilting and spinning for minutes. Both of them cursed blue streaks in a number of languages, trying not to smash into each other or the walls too hard. 

Gwyn cried out and Booker cringed, trying to find her in the chaos. “Gwyn?”

“My arm. Son of a… I’m fine. I’ll be fine. Just hurts.”

With a loud, clanking thud, the container came to a rest. However, a subtle, elusive motion remained under it. 

Gwyn hissed as her arm finished healing, staggering to her feet. Booker hurried toward her as she stumbled across the floor. “Do you feel that?”

“Yes,” she gritted out. “We’re on a ship.”

With dawning horror, Booker realized what Quỳnh was planning. “She’s going to throw the container into the sea!”

Gwyn leaned into him, and somehow she stopped looking so damn young and suddenly reminded him of Andy- ancient and exhausted. “No. I don’t think so. She won’t blame you or Nile. You’re too young to have been part of the decision to stop looking. She’ll blame Andy, Nicky, and Joe. And me, now that she knows I’m alive. But she’ll want people to suffer. Throwing Andromache in now just kills her. No, she’s got something planned, but it won’t be all of us.”

The days kept passing. Two more, now with less talking. Gwyn would still tell him stories if he asked, but she’d lose the plot, her mind somewhere else. A few times, he woke to find her on her knees a few feet from him, her lips moving in silent prayer. She’d stopped sleeping. Dark circles joined the smeared makeup around her eyes. Her skin grew paler the longer they were in the container. Booker had to remind her to eat.

On the morning of the third day, he woke up with his head in her lap, her fingers combing his hair gently. Her expression was inescapably sad. “Gwyn?” he muttered groggily. “What’s wrong?”

“I hoped we’d have more time,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“Time for what?”

She didn’t answer the question. “I need to ask things of you, Sébastien.”

“Anything.”

Gwyn laughed softly, but there was no joy in it. “Be careful of such promises, my brother. I don’t think any of the things I will ask you will hurt. But I need you to listen to me closely and pay attention. Can you?”

“Yes,” Booker said, the hair on the back of his neck raising up on end. 

“Bien.” Gwyn removed her hand from her hair, reaching up around her neck and pulling something out from underneath her shirt. “First, this is precious to me. I’ve had it for over eight hundred years, though the leather holding it has been replaced, as it will need to be again. Damn blood. I want you to wear it until such time as I ask for it back. Restring it, clean it, and keep it safe for me?”

Booker looked at the ancient bronze pendant, the archaic crucifix. He knew whose hands had gifted this to her. He nodded, taking it and tucking it around his neck and under his shirt. “Yes.”

“Thank you.” She took a slow, deep breath, and let it out. “Next, when they come for us, don’t fight. Don’t try to protect me. What’s coming is what has to happen. No matter how awful, you will let it happen. Can you do that?”

“What do you think…”

“Please, Sébastien. Trust me.”

Booker’s stomach twisted in knots. He nodded. “I trust you. I’ll do my best.”

“Alright. Next, I need you to know that I am going to say and do what I have to. Whether it is true or untrue. I will do it. Because it has to be done. I’m asking you to forgive me for it. After. If you can. Don’t make a promise on this one. If you can’t, it’s okay.”

Booker started to speak, but footsteps sounded from somewhere outside for the first time in days. 

“Last thing. After, when you are free, find Manvir Arjwal of Boston. Nile knows him. So does James Copley now. Tell him what happened. He deserves to know. Promise me that, even if you decide you can’t forgive me.”

The sound of keys in the locks securing the door grated, metal on metal.

Gwyn squeezed his hand. “Sébastien, please.”

“I promise.”

She breathed out a sigh of relief. “Merci, petit frère.”

The door swung open before Booker could speak and three men with guns stormed in. Booker and Gwyn stood. Initially, his first instinct was to move in front of her, to take the brunt of what was coming. They’d hidden their weapons, tucked back behind the food and water in case of search once they ascertained they were on a ship. Now, his fingers itched for something. The switchblade. The baton. Anything.

Gwyn moved away from him, standing with her hands out at her sides.

One of the men holstered his gun, strode up to her, and backhanded her, slamming her to the ground.

“You fuckers!” Booker yelled. “She did nothing.”

“Sébastien,” Gwyn said, spitting blood out. “It’s okay.” She sat up and held her arms out again, this time forward in a position to be cuffed. “We aren’t resisting.”

The man sneered and pulled out metal zip cuffs, cuffing Gwyn’s hands together and then hauling her to her feet. Already the split lip and bruising was disappearing.

Booker held out his own hands, fury burning in his chest. When this was all over, he’d track these men down and make each of them pay. 

The cuffs bit in. The guns pressed to the back of each of their heads were laughable, but neither of them pointed it out. Instead they let the men walk them from the container up the deck to an open spot that had been cleared. There, Quỳnh waited with the others and at her feet, a long metal box.

“Merde,” Booker muttered.

“Ah, we’re all here,” Quỳnh said. “Good. Family reunions are pleasant, are they not?”

“Generally my family does them without handcuffs,” Nile shot back, earning a kick to the back of her knees for her troubles. She landed hard on the deck, biting back a curse.

Booker took the interruption to give Andy a once over. Her lip looked like it was slowly healing from a split, and she stood like she favored her right leg over her left, but nothing looked life threatening. She caught his eye and gave him a tired smile.

“You are new, Nile, so you have not had time to learn about your new family. How they betray you.” She glanced toward him now. “Or their hypocrisy, perhaps when you betray them as they betray others.”

“We did not betray you, Quỳnh,” Nicky said. “We tried to find you. For years, we tried.”

“What are years to us! Lifetimes! Centuries!” She stepped forward grabbing Nicky’s shirt and shaking him. “You had centuries of life and love and joy, and I had half a millennium of entombment and death. Don’t speak to me of tried, Nicolo.”

“Quỳnh,” Andromache begged. “Please. Don’t do this.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’ll regret it one day. And you’ll have to live in that regret, as I have had to live in my regrets of ending our search for you.”

Quỳnh laughed, a low and bitter sound. “And yet, you live. For now. Do you know, I loved you. For years, until I realized you’d forgotten me, I loved you.”

“I never forgot you. I never stopped loving you.”

“And then all I dreamed of was putting you in my place.”

Andy gave her a tired smile. “If that would bring you peace, then I’m willing to accept that.”

Booker saw the horror on Nile’s face. The despair on Joe’s and Nicky’s. He glanced at Gwyn’s and saw… determination. 

“And give you a quick death? I know you are mortal now, Andromache. I won’t let you off so lightly. No, I’m going to make you live out the rest of your life with losing another of us. One of those you chose over me.”

The man holding Nicky suddenly shoved him forward. 

“NO!” Joe screamed, trying to fight the man holding him. “NO, NICOLO.”

Booker’s knees went weak. Everything they’d feared in Merrick’s lab was coming true.

The laughter from beside him cut across the deck cold as the north wind. Everyone stopped. 

Booker turned and the woman he’d spent the last several days with was gone. In her place was a woman with a face full of...not hatred. Something darker. Something cruel that made his skin crawl. 

The man holding Gwyn actually let go as she continued to cackle and she walked forward shaking her head. When she reached Quỳnh, she stepped between her and Nicolo. “Five hundred years. You had five hundred years, and you’re still a stupid, slow soldier good in a fight who can’t see the big picture. I’ve no clue why I’d expected anything more.”

“Gwynog,” Quỳnh hissed. “Get out of my way.”

“You would take your revenge by taking one of Andromache’s puppies? You’re a bloody fool, as you’ve always been. It was men of my faith who threw you into that prison. Hanged you. Found you your charming little cage and then consigned you to the sea inside it.” She stepped closer, getting into Quỳnh’s face as much as their height difference could allow. “How did they catch you, Quỳnh? You and Andromache were so smart. How did they know to seek you?”

Booker gaped and looked at the others. Nile stared open mouthed. Joe’s gaze remained on Nicky, while Nicky turned to Andy. And Andy. Andy looked pole axed.

“You?” Quỳnh said, her face paling.

“A thousand years of you and Andromache treating me like second hand trash for keeping my faith. A thousand years of slights for not fighting how you saw fit.” Gwyn shrugged. “Think about it, Quỳnh. I could always find you when I needed you. Why wouldn’t I be able to find you in the sea?”

“You did this? YOU DID THIS!”

Quỳnh’s voice rang out over the deck, a shriek of rage.

“How could I?” Gwyn shot back, voice cold and flat. “I’m just some simple nu…”

The word cut off as Quỳnh reached out and snapped Gwyn’s neck, the force of it twisting her head in a grotesque angle. She dropped to the deck with a soft thump. 

Booker bit back a scream of his own. He hadn’t understood what Gwyn was making him promise, back in their container. Now he did. And the pain of it tore at his heart.

“Put her in the box, seal it, and consign it to the sea,” Quỳnh ordered the men not holding the rest of them. “Make them watch, then put them back in their holding spaces.”

It was the work of only two or three minutes, not long enough for Gwyn to heal from the horrifying angle her head was at. The men picked up her body and crammed it in the box, then slammed the lid. A plasma torch to seal the locks. And then four of them lifted it and over it went, landing with a splash. Desperately, Booker swiveled his head around trying to see anything. A landmass in the distance. Anything that could give coordinates. 

But the sun was at midday and they were far enough out to sea that no land was in sight. He had no clue where the coffin had just gone over.

The others remained stonily silent, but tears rolled down his face. Gone. Gwyn had been in his life for perhaps a week and yet given him so much and now she was gone.

Quỳnh looked back at them all one last time. “Titanium,” she said. Then she turned and walked away.

***

They took all five of them back to one container, bringing over the remaining supplies and adding them to what was in it. Gwyn’s weapons disappeared. The only proof she existed at all lay in the metal pendant pressed against his chest, crusted with her blood and warm from his body heat.

The others sat stonily silent after the doors closed. Joe and Nicky held each other, wrapped tight together. Nile’s head was in her hands. Andy. Andy looked ready to curl up and die. 

No. That wasn’t going to happen. Booker rose, walking over to the supplies. He gathered water and meal bars and began making the rounds, starting with the woman who found him all those years ago.

“You need to drink and eat, Boss,” he said softly.

“I’m fine.” Andy muttered, her eyes closed.

“I’m sober,” Booker shot back. When her eyes opened, he grinned. “So humor me, please.” 

She huffed a laugh and took the food and water.

Nile put up no resistance, just took them, then said a soft grace over them.

Slowly, he made his way over to Nicky and Joe. Hand shaking, he reached out and touched Nicky softly on the shoulder. “Food and water,” he said, setting it down next to them. “When you’re ready.”

Joe’s voice, muffled by the crook of Nicky’s neck, muttered back, “Merci.”

And suddenly Booker was back in the other container with Gwyn in their last moments together, her making him promise. Merde. He took his own food and water, moved back away from everyone, turned his back and let himself cry. 

***

Three days later, they were treated to a return experience of life in a moving shipping container. This time, Booker moved to brace Andy with Nile, taking the brunt of any hits as the container spun up into the air and then back down with a thud onto solid ground. Twelve hours after that, the door opened with the help of remotely set low grade explosives and they stumbled out free into the night.

In Lisbon.

The five of them managed to get out of the dockyard and onto the street only a little worse for wear.

“Do we have a safe house here?” Nile asked, shaking her head to knock dust out of her hair.

“Yes,” Joe replied. “It’s a walk from here, but we do.”

Booker checked his inner pocket, finding his wallet with his current fake passport and id and about two hundred euros, as well as a credit card. “Did she take all of your wallets?”

“Did she not take yours?” Nile replied, looking aggrieved. “Dammit, mine was a gift.”

“It was Gucci,” Nicky offered.

Booker scuffed the toe of his boot. “I...I probably can’t get a flight this late. If you don’t mind me crashing tonight, I can treat you to a cab. Save Andy’s leg the walk.”

“My leg is fine,” Andy said, then took a step and hissed.

Booker sighed again. Then he reached in the wallet and took out a hundred. “Never mind. Here. I’ll just get a hotel. I need to get to Copley in the morning anyway. Adieu.”

“Copley?” Nile said. “Why?”

“Gwyn…” The name brought a lump to his throat. “Gwyn asked me to go see someone for her. Said Copley knew where to find him. Or you, Nile, but I understand you can’t… I should go.”

“Manvir?” Nile moved, grabbing his arm. “Did she ask you to go see Manvir?”

“Yes.” Booker laid a hand over hers. “Nile, I am exiled.”

“Fuck that, this is about Gwyn.” She turned to the others. “Well, say something!”

Andy leaned into Nicky, who’d moved to stand next to her. “What she said…”

Booker and Nile’s mouths dropped in sequence. “Are you crazy?” Nile asked.

“The hatred in her voice,” Joe added. “I’ve never heard her sound like that.”

“Mon Dieu,” Booker said, then spit. “She told me that she would do or say whatever she had to. I didn’t understand then, but I do now. Whatever she had to so she could sacrifice herself for you.” He pointed at Joe and Nicky.

“Us?”

“She knew she would not drown Andromache now that she is mortal. And that Nile and I were not culpable enough to appease her. It would be one of you. It would have been Nicky.” He shook his head. “She told whatever foul lie she had to tell to make Quỳnh direct her rage to her. She gave herself for you.”

Nile added, “You two told me how she rode into that inn from Russia, how she helped save Andromache. How she helped you search.” She looked at them. “She did penance all those years alone. Hell, last week, she was working with her friend to start mounting a new search for Quỳnh. On her own. All new tech. She didn’t consign her to her fate. She loves her. The way she loves all of us.”

Andy sagged. “Motherfucker.”

“So take the money. I have to go.” Booker turned away from them. 

“I need to go with you, but that bitch has my passport.” Nile’s voice stopped him in his tracks.

“Nile,” Andy said. “What are you talking about?”

“I’ve at least met Manvir. He deserves one face he knows to tell him his best friend is gone. So I’m going to need a passport. I assume Booker could forge me something if we go back to the house?”

“Yes,” Booker replied. “It will take a day at least.”

“We can live with that,” Nicky said. “For Gwyn.”

“Also, I need something that isn’t a shitty meal bar and a shower,” Nile added. “Can we get food this time of night?” 

“We'll manage,” Joe replied. He glanced at Booker, his face solemn. “Come on then. Let’s go home.”


	2. They Took Your Loved Ones, But Returned Them In Exchange For You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gwyn's in the Ocean. Booker and Nile are in for a shock when they go see Manvir.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gwyn has a couple opportunities to have POV in this chapter. How else can we know what being mostly dead is like?

_Heaven looked a lot like the houses in the Levant the first time Gwyn had moved through it, sometimes around the year 850CE. Mudbrick walls, squared construction. Cushions and carpets on the floor in the shaded interior of the house. Somewhere outside, children laughed and played._

_She lay stretched out on a long cushion, her head in her Lord’s lap. Simple linen and cotton garments clothed them both, her hair, once again the long, loose curls of her youth, flowed over his legs as his fingers combed through them. He had such dark, handsome eyes. Warm and rich like Italian hot chocolate, but flecked with gold. And his curls. Yusuf’s curls were nice, but these were unruly and wild. Like his parables. Ready to shake the world apart._

_Gwyn jerked, a spasm of pain echoing from her neck through her body. Like fire burning her from the inside out, scorching her hollow. They came every four or five minutes._

_“You do so well, beloved,” Yeshua whispered, leaning down to kiss her forehead. “So brave, my beautiful one.”_

_“Hurts,” she whispered. “Can’t...stop it.”_

_“I know. Just breathe through it. I’m here. I will not leave you.”_

_The pain eased. A bird sang from outside. Gwyn forgot it and was at peace again for another precious few minutes._

***

It took three days before they could leave for Boston. 

First, Booker had to reach out to contacts in Lisbon to get what he needed for an appropriate passport for Nile and then forge the thing, a painstaking process in an age of RFID chips. Canadian again, they decided, Nessa Forester. 

Then, looping Copley in and setting him on Quỳnh’s trail. Trying to find out when she’d been found, by whom, and how she’d managed to finance such a major operation in a short time.

And more importantly, trying to figure out what ship had brought in the container they’d been in with the hope of tracing it’s route. That fell apart when they found out the harbormaster’s records had been hacked and destroyed and the explosive damage had destroyed the container’s serial numbers. Dead end. There were too many ships moving in and out of the Port of Lisbon to figure out which one had brought one container.

Finally, the argument about what the rest of the team should prioritize.

“Quỳnh is out there,” Andy argued. “She’s had her revenge, but who knows what she’s doing now. We need to find her and bring her in.”

“So we’re just going to leave Gwyn down there?” Nile asked. “Abandon her so she’s crazy if she ever gets out too? Or are we hoping because she’s old, she might die. Didn’t work for Quỳnh.”

Andy cringed. “That’s not fair. We looked for Quỳnh as best we could because we have somewhere to start. We don’t with Gwyn right now. Anywhere in three days sail of Lisbon is a lot of ocean. We have to narrow that down and we need Quỳnh for that.”

“And we can’t take three days to go to Boston and do the last thing Gwyn asked any of us to do?”

“It would let Quỳnh’s trail go cold,” Joe interjected. 

“Well, I am going with Booker. I’ll catch up to you when I can,” Nile said, hoisting her backpack. “Leave word with Copley how to find you.”

“We will,” Nicky said, coming to hug her. “Take care, mia sorellina.”

“We will,” she replied, including Booker in her reply. She nodded at him. “Let’s go.”

Once they were on a plane from Lisbon to Logan International, she sighed. “That was...not fun.”

“First fight?” he asked her, sipping his ginger ale. He hadn’t touched alcohol since the abduction, wondering if he’d been a little faster if he could have stopped all this from the start.

“Sort of. Sucks.”

“You’ll all get over it. It’s not like you sold them out.”

“Not funny, Book.”

“Sorry,” he replied, shrugging. “Gallows humor. Thank you for coming.”

“You shouldn’t have to do this alone,” Nile replied. She tapped her nails on the plastic tray table in front of her for a minute, clearly puzzling through more to say. Finally, she sighed. “Do you think it’s some kind of magic?”

“Magic?” Booker parroted, feeling dense. “I don’t understand.”

“I met the four of you barely six months ago. I met Gwyn less than a month from today. But I love all of you.” She shook her head. “I’ve never loved people that way that fast that weren’t blood family to me. Was it like that for you when you met Andy and the guys?”

Booker huffed out a laugh. “Not entirely. When I met Andy, all I wanted was to go home. I’d spent three days hanging in the frigid Russian winter, dying over and over.” He kept his voice low so only she heard him. “The last thing I wanted to be told was of some new family, some immortal quest. I helped them, and I came to care for them, but my heart was torn for too long. I kept going home. I am glad you aren’t repeating my mistakes.”

Nile reached out, grabbing his hand. “I think it’s easier now. I...I have this dummy Facebook account. Someone I made up, not my picture or anything. I use it to check in on my mom and brother. They’re doing okay. Or, as okay as you can expect. And Copley’s keeping a subtle eye on them for me.”

“That’s good.” Booker sipped at his drink, and to his surprise, he didn’t wish for whiskey. Or scotch. Or vodka.

“What about Gwyn?”

“What about her?” Booker asked.

“Meeting her. What was it like?”

“Well, she came into my apartment, and our mutual friend killed her. Then me.” Fury, dark and twisting bubbled up inside him. Never mind two hundred years of watching Quỳnh drown over and over. How that could lead her to want vengeance on those who loved her, he couldn’t ultimately understand. “We woke up in our container. Gwyn had a bad go of it from the drugs. And then we...talked.”

“She’s good at that,” Nile offered.

“Very good. I think I’ve talked more to her than perhaps the others in all our years.”

“Did it help?”

“Right up until she sacrificed herself.”

***

Copley called ahead. A car waited for them at Logan, driving them through Boston and to the apartments on Boylston overlooking the Common. Nile got out, leading the way through the door and up to the doorman, who looked deeply dubious to see them.

“Nell Foster and associate to see Mr. Manvir Arjwal.”

The man raised a sanctimonious eye, but picked up his phone. The resulting conversation ended in a sigh. “Do you remember the way, Ms. Foster?”

“Yes, thank you.”

She led Booker to an elevator, then waited until they were inside to speak. “Asshole.”

“He seemed displeased to see us.”

“We do look like we just got off a plane. Plus, the last time we were here, Gwyn…” Nile stopped, collecting herself for a moment. “Gwyn was in her full punk rock glory. He was whelmed.”

The elevator dinged to a stop, spilling them out into a hallway. Nile turned and led him to a door at the end, knocking with authority. In a few moments, it opened on a beautiful Sikh woman in a stunning turquoise turban that complimented her outfit, smiling at them. “You must be Ms. Freeman and Mr. Booker. Please, come in. My husband is expecting you.”

Nile and Booker exchanged a look, but followed the woman inside as she led them through the apartment to a large office overlooking the street and Boston Common beyond it. “I’ll fetch drinks. Coffee? Water? Lemonade?”

“Coffee, please,” Nile replied. “Do you have milk?”

“Almond. Is that all right?”

“Fine.”

“Just water, thanks.”

The man sitting at the desk smiled at Nile. “Nile, I didn’t expect you back so soon.”

“Manny.” She stepped forward and shook his hand, then gestured to Booker. “This is my colleague, Sébastien la Livre. We call him Booker.”

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Arjwal.” He stepped forward and shook his hand, noticing for the first time the high end wheelchair.

“Forgive me for not standing, my exosuit is having some adjustments done, so I’m chairbound today.”

The woman returned, bringing a tray with four drinks. She waited for them to take theirs, passed a second mug of coffee to Manvir, and then sat the tray on a table before picking up the lemonade and taking a seat at a chair in the room.

Booker looked between her, Manvir, and Nile for a moment before clearing his throat. “Forgive me, Mrs. Arjwal, we need to discuss something sensitive about a colleague with your husband.”

The woman laughed. “Please, my name is Bargitta. And if it is regarding the immortality the two of you share with his Gwynna, I am, as they say, read in.”

Booker almost dropped his glass.

“Shit,” Nile muttered, sitting down on the sofa heavily. “Andy will have kittens.”

“Only if we tell her,” muttered Booker.

“If it helps,” Bargitta offered, “I consider it a matter of doctor-patient confidentiality.”

“That is the last thing that will make the rest of our friends feel better,” Booker said, taking a long sip of water. “I think omission is the better part of valor for now.”

“What I am curious about,” Manvir cut in, “Is why Gwyn has sent you to discuss things with me instead of coming herself. Did she want an update on my research into your lost friend, Nile?”

All the air left Booker’s lungs in that moment. Manvir smiled at them, looking between them. Then the smile slowly left his face.

“Nile, Mr. le Livre. Where is Gwyn?”

Nile looked at Booker.

Booker set down the glass and took a deep breath. Then he started at the beginning. 

Nile offered a few interjections when he had to pause to keep his composure.

All told, it took less than fifteen minutes. By the time he’d finished, Bargitta had risen, abandoning her lemonade to stand next to her husband and place a steadying hand on his shoulder.

“She sacrificed herself to save the others,” he finished. “The last we saw, they threw the box with her body into the ocean somewhere probably in the Atlantic or the western Mediterranean.”

“Manvir, I am so very, very sorry,” Nile added.

“I see.” Manvir reached up and squeezed Bargitta’s hand. Then he drew it down to his lips and kissed it. “Well, this does accelerate my search timeline exponentially.”

“Sorry?” Booker said, confused. “You were planning to search for Quỳnh based on possible leads. We have none now. Where she went in, it was midday in the open ocean. All we know was it was approximately three days' sail from Lisbon. That’s an impossibly huge space to cover.”

“That would be true if I wasn’t a paranoid bastard.” Manvir chuckled to himself. “You said she gave you jewelry to hold?”

Booker nodded, drawing the pendant out from under his shirt. While in Lisbon, Joe had gone out and found a new leather thong for it, then carefully cleaned it and restrung it for him. He held it up now. “This. She said she’d had it for a long time.”

“Is that all? What about rings?”

“Rings?” Nile asked. “Like her black asexual ring on her right hand?”

“Yes, she wears that. But think, do you recall if she was wearing a silver ring on her left?”

Booker thought back. Maybe. Something stiff and hard, that would catch in his hair a little when she stroked it to sooth him after a particularly hard story. “Looked a little like one of those Irish rings that were so popular for a while?”

Manvir turned, opening a drawer in his desk and digging out a picture of a ring in a small black box. He held it out to Booker. “Like this?”

A flash of memory. “Yes. Yes, she was wearing it.”

“Thank you, Gwynna,” Manvir muttered. Looking up at his wife. “We’re going to be a while. Do you want to see if that place you like will deliver?”

“Sure. And I’ve got some charting to do. Especially if I might need to take a leave of absence.” She kissed his cheek and disappeared out the door.

“I don’t understand what’s happening,” Nile interjected. “Why does Gwyn’s jewelry matter?”

“Not long after we married, I gave her that ring. It was based on a fidelis. A medieval vow ring. Our vow of friendship. After she came out to me as immortal and it was time for her to disappear, she asked me to keep it safe for her.” He turned to the array of monitors and computers, booting them up and typing commands at a speed that made Booker envious. “When she told me you were all alive, and what had happened to you, and that she was willingly entering back into your lives, I worried. I had a contact working with a company doing nano-tech GPS tracking. I knew we couldn’t do an implant. Gwyn’s body would reject it. So I had the bottom of the ring hollowed out and one put in.”

“You’ve been tracking her?” Nile asked, eyes huge.

“Not actively and only with her consent. She took the ring back when I explained it. I have a program set to run through multiple layers of encryption and back the data up on a secure server.” He began entering lines of code into a blank screen. “The agreement was that if she ever went radio silent, if all of you completely disappeared, I could access it. So I could get you help.”

“Shit. Copley will want in.”

“Only if you tell him,” Manvir offered.

“He’s going to figure it out if we manage to find her this quickly,” Nile pointed out. Then she shrugged. “Though honestly, it's not a half bad idea.”

“The two of them are going to be unstoppable,” Booker muttered, exhaustion hitting him. “So you’re telling me that your little nanotech chip is going to work miles under the ocean.”

“Probably not. But the point where we lose signal is going to be a place to start. If it’s a titanium box with a person in it, it won’t drift far, even in a heavy current.” He glanced up at Nile. “We may need your Copley to expedite helping us supply the search. I was investigating just buying the equipment and running it with Gwyn myself, but it was going to take more time than we likely want to spend.”

“I’ll make the call.”

Nile stepped out into the hallway, dialing Surrey.

Booker stood at Manvir’s shoulder as lines of code and data suddenly became maps. “Holy shit.”

A blinking green light popped up in Boston, and they watched as it crossed the Atlantic on an arch that followed a standard flight path between Logan and Charles de Gaulle. The map zoomed itself in as the light made its way through Paris to a less than desirable neighborhood and then stopped in a building for fifteen minutes. When it came out, it left Paris quickly, headed to Saint-Nazaire where it sat unmoving for days before loading onto what must be a boat and sailing out into the Atlantic.

Watching the light and the time stamp, Booker relived those days and hours. Gwyn’s gentle kindness. Her humor. Her willingness to bleed her own heart for him so he felt safe doing the same with her. 

The light moved through the water. Sailing west until it came to a stop. Then the light disappeared. 

Booker flinched. Gwyn’s head at a grotesque angle flashed before his eyes. The sickening splash of the titanium coffin hitting the water echored in his ears.

“49.289 N by -24.561 W,” Manvir murmured. “Gotcha, Gwynna. We’re coming.”

***

Copley was a man of seemingly limitless connections. In forty-eight hours, he had a small deep water salvage crew who had accepted a “shit ton of money to ask no questions” contract for hauling up a lost metal box, depositing it onto the deck of a second vessel, and then leaving sight unseen.

He’d arranged said second vessel for them, ready to leave out of Port Lairge in Ireland as soon as they could meet him. They being Booker, Nile, Manvir, and Bargitta, both of whom insisted on coming. Manvir because there was no way in hell he wasn’t, and Bargitta because she wasn’t going to let her husband that close to danger without a doctor present.

The rest of the team had checked in with Copley the day before, but were maintaining radio silence as they continued to track Quỳnh, who he explained was leaving a considerably inconvenient trail of dead bodies. An extremely obvious trail. And three more people would only crowd the boat.

As they stowed their gear on the ship, a deep sea fishing trawler that Copley felt capable of crewing with two men he trusted, Nile brought up another reason for the absence. “I’m not sure they can take it if we fail to find her. If the transponder failed somehow and she’s not there. Or if...if she’s gone.”

Booker squeezed his eyes shut, sitting heavily against his berth in the tight crew quarters. They’d given the captain’s quarters to the Arjwals. His hand came up, rubbing against the pendant under his shirt. “She’s there. She has to be.”

“I hope so.” Nile squeezed his arm and then left him to go find the galley and start stocking in food.

The sailing to their coordinates went faster. Ireland lay closer to the point on the nautical charts where Gwyn’s beacon had disappeared then the port it left in France. Booker ended up haunting the pilot’s house of the ship like a ghost long after Copley or Manvir had turned in, a silent presence out of the way of Cellach or Seamus, whichever man was on duty at the helm. 

Nile brought him coffee from time to time, and once a scarf that looked like a dog had gotten a hold of it. “Knitting is supposed to be relaxing. Or so they say. I’m not good at it yet.”

“Thanks, kid.”

“You’re welcome, old man.” She bumped his arm with her shoulder and retreated back down to the crew quarters.

In the early evening of the second day, they reached the coordinates and rendezvoused with the salvage team. Copley got them on a satellite link.

“We’ve got a possible sonar hit about two hundred and fifty yards from where we’re anchored, due west,” Simmons, the head of the Salvage team offered over the video. “If it’s your box, it’s sitting at a depth of not quite 4000 feet. And it’s going to be a bitch to retrieve.”

“Why?” Copley asked calmly before Manvir or Booker could snap at the man. 

“It landed on its end and wedged in that way. Possibly between some rocks in the sea bed. We need to take the remote operated vehicle down for a better look so we can see how hard it will be to winch it out.”

“Stand by, Mr Simmons.” Copley muted the feed and killed the video. “Are there viewing holes in this box, the way you described in the previous sea cage?”

“No,” Nile said. “There are some small holes around the side, but not big enough to do anything but let water in. The top was solid.” 

The better to keep Gwyn in darkness as she drowned. Booker closed his eyes and let himself imagine flaying Quýnh.

“Good.” He flicked buttons and switches. “Deploy the ROV, Mr. Simmons.”

“You’re the boss.”

Through the link, they watched as the ROV dove. Every foot down, the water grew darker, deeper. Sea life changed. Nile grabbed Booker’s hand. They’d both drowned in their dreams with Quỳnh. They knew the pressure. The burn of the salt. The agony. Lights came on, cutting through gloom. 

Down, down, down it went. And then it slid sideways across an ocean floor inhabited by strange sea life, rocks, bits of cast off debris. The ROV’s propellers kicked up silt from the seabed, muddying the waters around it.

Suddenly, there it was. It rose at a tilt from the seabed, wedged in between a stone and some old piece of metal debris like a pagan standing stone of old. On the video, the metal looked greenish grey.

And it didn’t move. No jerking or shaking. No furious beating of fists. It stood still and silent as the grave on the ocean floor. 

Booker’s heart sank.

“Is that it?” Copley asked softly. 

Could it be anything else? Were people chucking metallic caskets into the sea all the time now?

“It is,” Nile whispered back, her voice hoarse. She exchanged a brief glance with Booker, one that spoke of dread and denial.

Copley nodded, then pressed a button to speak through the relay to the other ship. “That’s it, Mr. Simmons. Do whatever it takes to get it up and onto our ship.”

Booker turned away, unable to watch as the ROV moved forward to start assessing cable placement. The tragedy already wrote itself on the screen.

***

_Heaven shouldn’t hurt. Gwyn gritted her teeth until she wished they’d just crack. Anything to escape the sharp, fiery blades of pain from her neck. Anything to make it stop. Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop._

_Wrong, this is wrong, my body’s wrong._

_If this is Heaven, if I died my final death, why do I hurt?_

_“Help me,” she whispered, looking into her Lord’s eyes._

_“I can’t, beloved,” he said, his own filled with tears. “It’s not yet time.”_

_“Please. I’m so tired. It hurts.”_

_He pressed a kiss to her hand. “I know. I am with you, always. Hold on, beloved Gwynog. Be brave.”_

_The pain roared._

_Gwyn screamed._

_***_

It took five and a half hours for the ROV to maneuver the steel cabling around the box and secure it well enough to winch it out of it’s watery resting place. Manvir and Nile stayed on deck the whole time with Copley, watching.

Booker found himself in the crew quarters. Bargitta Arjwal stood at the galley, cooking. One large pot bubbled with the heady smell of curry and spices. A smaller one smelled like nothing so much as the hot chicken broth his own mother had fed him when he was ill.

“Thank you.” The words came out hoarse and he coughed as she turned to him. “Thank you, for cooking. We would have probably lived on meal bars or MREs without you.”

“That shit’s terrible for you, you know,” she commented, stirring the smaller pot.. 

Booker raised an eyebrow at her.

She scoffed. “Please. Just because something can’t kill you doesn’t mean you should indulge in it. Plus, James and Manvir are mortal, as are the two nice young men sleeping off last night’s sailing in their quarters. Healthy eating is important for them.”

He glanced around, but their back up crew were nowhere to be found. “Does it not...I don’t know, intrigue you? What we are?”

“Of course it does. But I have seen miraculous things in my practice before. Maybe none quite so miraculous as my husband’s dead first wife shoving a knife into her arm and healing.” She stopped, laughing. “But little miracles, all the same. My faith tells me there are questions my science can’t answer. Perhaps you people are that.”

“And no niggling desire to experiment on us?”

“Beyond Gwyn letting me have blood and DNA to play with?”

Booker sat down heavily. “She did what?”

“Don’t worry. I have no nefarious plans for it. She too went to medical school, though it has been a number of decades ago now. She was curious what new technology might say about her.” Bargitta’s smile faded. “We had not had time to talk about it.”

Booker looked down at his hands, rubbing them together. “I don’t think Nile has said anything to Manvir or Copley, but I think….I think we need to prepare for the worst.”

Bargitta gave him a sad smile. “I’m a doctor. I am making soup, and I have things to help Gwynna rehydrate. I have comfortable pajamas for her and warm wool socks.” She paused. “I also have a body bag that my husband does not know about. We always prepare for every possible scenario.”

Booker nodded. “I’m sorry.”

“We shall hold on to hope until it’s gone.”

“I’m scared that if I try to do that, it’s going to take all the hope I have left.”

“Hey, guys,” Nile called down the steps. “It’s coming up.”

***

The winch on the salvage ship Dauntless swung on a boon and it’s operator carefully maneuvered the box dripping seawater from small holes along its sides over the edge of the deck of the fishing trawler Cliodna, then carefully lowered it down to rest on the deck with a thud. Cellach and Seamus moved to undo the cabling, freeing it so the boon could swing back away.

In the pilot house of the Cliodna, James Copley spoke to Captain Simmons of the Dauntless. “That will be all, Mr. Simmons. I’m transferring final payment now. Thank you and your crew for your work. As per the terms of the contract, you’re not to speak on this to anyone.”

“Weirdest salvage I’ve ever run, but it’s your money. Have a good one.”

On the deck, Cellach and Seamus disappeared back below with orders to stay there until told otherwise. Booker stood, plasma torch in hand, itching to move and waiting until the Dauntless had fired up her engines and moved out of sight.

Only when the ship was lost to the horizon did he and Nile move. Welding visors in place, plasma torches in hand, they worked from opposite ends to cut around the top of the sealed box. When they’d sliced it all the way around, the shut the torches down and dropped them. Then on the count of three, they shoved the newly formed lid free.

What waited for them inside shattered Booker’s heart.

Gwyn lay as he’d last seen her, crumpled like a broken doll with her neck still at it’s horrific angle. Her lips, once a punk purple, now wore a somber blue in a face of too pale skin, little bits here and there nibbled away by sea life.

Nile turned away, lurching to the side of the boat and vomiting over it.

Booker turned back to the three people hurrying toward them. “Manvir, Bargitta, don’t.” His voice broke. “She’s...she’s not coming back. You don’t want to remember her like this.”

Manvir swayed on his feet, with Copley shooting out an arm to steady him in his exosuit. “No. That can’t possibly be right. We found her. She’s immortal. We found her. She has to be okay.”

Bargitta took a deep breath, then turned to the two men. “Mr. Copley, would you see my husband downstairs and get him some water please.”

Copley nodded, gently leading Manvir away. 

Booker turned back to the coffin and sunk to his knees next to it, tears welling up. “Dammit, Gwyn.”

A soft hand rested on his shoulder and he found Bargitta Arjwal behind him. “The angry one, she broke her neck before she went in the box?”

“Yes,” he said, sniffling. Whatever pride he had was gone. 

The woman let go, moving past him and kneeling, resting her hand on Gwyn’s cheek. 

“Hmmm. Are you aware, Booker, that the average temperature at the bottom of the ocean is zero degrees centigrade?”

He blinked at her. “Are you trying to give me a science lesson right now?”

“I am going to ask you to humor me. Help me lift her out of this wretched box.”

Bargitta’s request was the first sensible thing in hours. If nothing else, the sight of Gwyn in this box made him want to murder people. So many people. Made him want to spend the rest of his eternity carving pieces from Quỳnh until her immortality gave out.

“I’ll take head,” he said gruffly, moving into position.

“Feet,” she replied. “On three. One, two, three.”

She weighed barely anything, with both of them lifting. Moving gently, they set her a few feet away from the box. Then Bargitta shifted next to him and moved him gently out of the way. She knelt and with the most tender care, took Gwyn’s head in her hands, realigning her neck. 

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Hoping for the miraculous.” She bowed her head and her lips moved as she held the head in place. Booker simply watched, flummoxed. A snapped neck should have healed within, at the most, ten minutes of it being inflicted. It had been over a week.

Nile came back, tucking herself into his side. His hand went around her, tugging her close.

And then, subtly, one of Gwyn’s hands twitched. 

Booker blinked, bleary eyed and exhausted. His mind played tricks on him, that was all. 

Suddenly, a ragged gasp broke the silence. No sputtering, no coughing, just gasping over and over. Booker’s eyes jerked to Gwyn’s face where her eyes shot open, going wide at Bargitta smiling down at her.

“Welcome back,” Bargitta offered. “Do not do that again.”

Gwyn continued to gasp and gape, her head turning just a little to find Nile and Booker. Without a voice, she mouthed, Nicolo.

“Safe. They’re safe.” Booker stumbled forward, going to his knees. His hand cupped her cheek when Bargitta moved hers. “I do not forgive you right now.”

She blinked. Let her face rest against his palm. 

“Has your neck healed?” Bargitta asked. 

Gwyn tilted her head a little more, then grimaced. 

“Right. Nile, there is a body board over on the wall there. Fetch it please.” She looked back down. “I don’t think you actually drowned. I suspect the box landed head down, and your body weight crammed you in it in such away that your neck couldn't try to heal. So you are severely dehydrated, and your body is hypothermic from being at freezing temperatures for...well, longer than advisable. But the fish bites appear to be healing quite nicely.”

Gwyn managed to raise one eyebrow. Booker snorted.

“Let’s go save my husband from torrents of grief, get you warm and dry, and re-hydrated.” 

Nile returned with the body board, and together the three of them managed to maneuver Gwyn onto it without any new damage. Then Booker and Nile lifted her and carried her as Bargitta hurried ahead to make sure the two crewmen weren’t in the mess or the end of sleeping berths they’d taken for use by Booker, Nile, and Copley with one left open out of hope.

As the carefully descended the stairs, Copley called out, “What’s going on?”

And then Manvir’s voice added a strangled, “Gwynna?”

Booker kept moving, following Bargitta through the galley and into the bunks until she ordered them to set the backboard down on the floor.

Gwyn made a soft pained sound, almost like a dog in distress, but kept smiling up at them with her wide brown eyes. Somewhere along the way, Bargitta had grabbed a large orange bag.

“Gwyn, we need to get you out of your clothes. Do you want me to try to save them, or just cut them off?”

With shaking hands still in the godforsaken cuffs, like she was about to play Roshambo, Gwyn mimed scissors.

“Okay.” Bargitta looked up at Booker. “In our quarters, I have a bag of things for her. Manvir can help you find it. Let Nile and I take care of her for now.”

Booker looked down at Gwyn. She kicked out, nudging his ankle through his boots. Go, she mouthed.

Booker nodded, then turned and walked away.

***

The light on the deck of the ship had been blinding, and the person whose face she’d expected to see hadn’t been Bargitta Arjwal’s, but Gwyn found she didn’t mind. Her beloved former husband had excellent taste in second wives. And while waking hadn’t ended the pain of not quite Heaven, it changed it to something of healing. 

Booker and Nile she had expected. Relief to see them safe, to know the others were safe. That she hadn’t sacrificed in vain. That helped more.

Now, below decks, Nile started with her boots as Bargitta took a set of medics sheers and began by cutting away the damn cuffs before attacking her clothes. Shit. She had loved that Ramones shirt. It had been a hell of a show. The jacket was replaceable and so were the jeans, but that shirt was a little piece of her history.

As they cut things away, Nile occasionally squeaked as a small sea creature fell out. Bargitta simply grabbed them, throwing them in a bag meant for the destroyed clothes. Bra and panties were sliced away last, and then she lay there cold and nude until Nile finished checking her for errant sea life and covered her with a blanket.

“You’re severely dehydrated,” Bargitta began, stuffing scraps into the trash bag. “I’m not the immortality expert here, but I suspect that your body is healing slowly because it doesn’t have enough fluid to do the job. We can try to have you drink electrolyte drinks, but with nothing in your stomach, I’m worried you might vomit it up. Or I can do a fast large bore IV and have Nile hold it in place while I push a bag of saline.”

“Jesus,” Nile muttered.

“Not going to lie,” Bargitta said, “Your body will probably be trying to reject the IV and it’s going to hurt.”

Gwyn grimaced for a second. But Bargitta was right. She’d been down there for...she didn’t know how long, and apparently unable to fully heal and her body needed an assist. Fuck. “I…V…,” she wheezed.

“Okay.” Bargitta started digging in her bag, coming up with a metal hook she hung over the edge of Nile’s top bunk, a bag of Saline on a line, and a large bore IV needle. She tossed Nile a pair of gloves. “Once I get this in and taped, I need you to put your hands over it and hold down pressure to keep it in. I’m going to stand and squeeze the bag to force the drip.”

Nile nodded, then looked at Gwyn. “I’m sorry.”

“Sokay.” She dragged her arm out from under the blanket, offering it to Bargitta. “Do it.”

The needle hurt. Gwyn tried to bite back a whine, but it vibrated long and low in the back of her throat as Bargitta forced the needle into the vein then taped it in place like it was going to wrestle it’s way out.

“Nile,” the doctor commanded. “Switch.”

Nile’s grip came down hard and Gwyn blinked back tears her body didn’t have to give as Bargitta stood and straddled her waist, opening the flow and then gripping the bag. The flow of saline hit and burned hot and cold, hot and cold.

Gwyn dipped her head back, squeezing her eyes shut and biting down on her lip. Salty iron filled her mouth as she drew blood to keep from screaming. Screaming would bring Manvir and Booker running. Screaming would draw the rest of the crew. No screaming. Breathe. Breathe. I am with you. Always. Beloved one. 

“Half way,” Bargitta murmured.

“Her body hates this thing.” Nile squeezed harder. Gwyn smacked her free hand flat palmed on the floor beside her. “Shit, I’m sorry Gwyn. I’m sorry.”

Even as the pain increased, saliva started to flow in her mouth again. Tears pricked at her eyes. Gwyn sucked in air through her nose and then blew it out through her mouth, swallowing the taste of blood down a throat that no longer felt dry as the Gobi. 

“Almost. Just a little more.”

You’re doing so well, beloved. So brave.

“Okay, Nile, move.”

And the needle was gone.

“Fuck me sideways,” Gwyn gasped. “Oh, I hope you never have to do that Nile.”

Nile gave a wet laugh, grabbing Gwyn’s hand. “Me too.”

“How’s your neck?” Bargitta asked.

Gwyn tentatively moved it, listening to little cracks and pops, but no real pain radiated. She wiggled her toes and her fingers. “Fine, I think. It should be completely healed by tomorrow, but for now, I can probably stand up.”

“Do you want a shower?” Nile smiled at her.

Gwyn groaned. “God, yes, but I’m not sure I have that much energy.”

“If it won’t weird you out, I’ll come with you. Get you washed.”

“That isn’t weird. Thank you.” Gwyn let the younger woman help her up and lead her around the corner to the little head between these crew berths and the captain’s cabin. Gwyn leaned against the wall as Nile stripped down, setting aside her clothes and then starting the shower stall on hot.

She helped her in, and Gwyn stood there under the spray for a long moment letting it chase the chill out of her body. She’d woken up so cold. So damn cold. Even when she used to take her penance, it never felt that cold to her.

“I’m going to wash your hair, is that okay?” Nile said, standing behind her.

“Yeah.” Gwyn closed her eyes as Nile took shampoo and rubbed it into her hair, scrubbing it into the longer side and then rubbing her knuckles on the shorter, sheared side. It reminded Gwyn of getting it washed before getting a haircut with her stylist back in Seattle. Shyra had good strong hands like Nile did.

“Okay, rinse that.” 

Gwyn turned under the spray, letting it wash the lather out. When she opened her eyes, Nile stood there with a loofah. She handed it to her. “I’m going to let you do your torso. Anywhere private. I can do your back and your arms and legs. Deal?”

“Yes.” Gwyn smiled. “Thank you for this Nile. Really.”

Nile stared at her for a moment, and then shook her head. “You don’t have to thank me, Gwyn. Not after what you did.”

That merited a longer conversation, one where the water wasn’t going to get cold. She took the loofah, managing to get her torso and her own arse before her exhaustion started catching up to her. Nile helped, grabbing the thing and getting her arms, legs, and feet. 

Water turned off, she toweled dry when Bargitta knocked at the door frame and handed her a bag. Inside she found new women’s panties in her size, thick soft flannel pajamas, thick wool socks, and a heavy pair of slippers.

“We have actual day clothes for you as well, but I suspect more than anything, you’ll want something to eat and then sleep.”

“Are you sure you aren’t an expert on immortality?” Nile asked, dressing herself.

Bargitta laughed. “Just a doctor with years of experience. James has sent the crewmen up to get us underway back to port. Do you want to come sit with us in the galley?”

“I suspect Manvir might riot if I don’t,” Gwyn replied, smiling. She’d heard the shock in his voice as they’d carried her through earlier. “Please tell me the chairs have backrests.”

“We’ll figure something out.”

“Hell, Booker would probably hold you on his lap,” Nile added. “I’m not sure what you two talked about while you were in that container together, but he didn’t want to rest until he got to Manvir and kept his promises to you.”

Gwyn smiled softly. “Okay. Let’s go have dinner.”


	3. Let The Only Sound Be The Over Flow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Booker and Gwyn settle into the after. Down time turns out to give them more time to talk, and Booker time to think.

That first dinner had been a brief but joyous affair, even for Booker. Gwyn stepped into the galley, supported on Nile’s arm and wearing purple and black plaid pajamas, a soft smile on her face. And Manvir burst into tears. She’d gone to him first as Booker watched, holding her former husband as he cried. When the tears ended, she pressed a quick kiss to Manvir’s cheek and then handed him to his wife.

Next she held out her hand to James Copley. “Hello. I’m Gwynog ferch Brochfael. Please, call me Gwyn. I’m sorry we didn’t get to meet under less dramatic circumstances.”

Copley laughed. “From what I can surmise, that seems like par for the course. James, or Copley, whichever you prefer.”

“James then. Thank you for your assistance in dredging me back up. I’m in your debt. Sébastien tells me you have an interest in our lives.” She glanced at Booker then and her soft smile warmed him. She turned back to Copley. “Perhaps you and I might plan a few days in the future where we chat and I can give you an outline of mine.”

Copley’s mouth dropped. “Just like that?”

Gwyn chuckled. “I’d say a life for a life is fair recompense.”

Finally, she moved around to Booker. “Hello, Sébastien.”

He’d stared at her, how she looked both incongruously younger and more ancient like this without her punk armor. “Gwyn.” He reached up for his throat, for the leather thong he’d not removed in days. 

Her hand reached out, catching his and pressing it gently against his chest. “Not yet. I’m not quite ready for it back.”

Booker frowned at her confused. “Why not?”

Gwyn shrugged.

He huffed. “I still don’t forgive you.”

“That’s fair. But please budge over. I’m about to topple and I need to lean on you.”

Audacious little shit of a woman. Booker scooted down the bench to make room, moving his bowl of Bargitta Arjwal’s excellent curry and his can of seltzer out of her way. She flopped next to him, leaning against him and resting her head on his arm as dinner resumed around them and Bargitta brought her chicken broth and soft bread.

The next morning, as the ship sailed closer to Ireland, he’d gone up on deck to sneak a smoke and been surprised to find her and Manvir at the bow, watching as they cut through the waves.

“You know,” Manvir said as Booker inadvertently ease dropped, “when I gave you the ring, I wasn’t planning on you field testing it that quickly.”

“It wasn’t on my docket either.” She leaned into the other man with an easy intimacy born of long friendship and trust, her pajamas traded for jeans and a heavy anorak jacket over a sweater. “Believe me, as God is my witness, I will never call you paranoid again.”

“You will,” Manvir said. “But this time I was right.”

There was a long moment of silence, one Booker almost used to back away quietly when Manvir spoke again.

“Why did it have to be you in the box, Gwynna?”

“Because I had the ring,” she replied, and even Booker, who’d known her days to this man’s years, could hear the half truth in that.

“We could have used the tracking information from it,” Manvir pointed out. “If it had been any of the others, we could have used the same information to figure out where the boat started from, stopped, sailed on to. We’d have found them. So please don’t lie to me, Gwynna. Why did it have to be you?”

She turned then, and the light from the east caught her, haloing her head like a medieval painting. Like a saint in stained glass.

“Because we hadn’t tested the ring. Because I hoped it would work, but I didn’t know.” She raised her hand, pressing the palm to Manvir’s face softly. “Because my faith tells me to emulate my Christ in all things, and that the greatest act of emulation is to lay down my life for my brothers and sisters. I’ve let death take me for others hundreds of times before you and I ever met, Manvir. If I’d had to, I’d have died for you that first day too. I made this sacrifice knowing that if the ring failed, I wouldn’t have been alone. I could have borne it. Because I love them enough to do it. All of them.”

Booker leant heavily against the wall of the ship.

“I hate how much I love that about you, Gwynna.” Manvir brought her free hand up and pressed a soft kiss to the back. “Try not to do it again while I live.”

“I’ll do my best.” They moved off around the other side of the ship, leaving Booker alone.

***

“So what now?” Copley asked Booker later when he found the man up in the pilot house of the ship.

“What do you mean?”

Copley leaned back in the captain’s chair, and someday, Booker would have to get the story out of him where he learned to sail a fishing boat. But not today. 

“I mean, now that we’ve rescued the damsel in distress. What now?”

Booker shrugged, leaning with his own ass against the instrument panel, careful to not bump any instruments. “Hadn’t thought about that yet.”

“Well, I took the liberty of sending a discrete associate to your place in Paris. The door was locked, but he used...alternate means to enter. The blood has been cleaned up and he’s resecured the residence with a new, better lock. He also used Manvir’s information to find and retrieve Gwyn’s luggage and effects. They’ll be waiting for us in Port Lairge.”

“Thank you.” Booker reached up, scratching behind his neck. “I appreciate it.”

“It’s the least I could do, after…” He trailed off, discomfited.

“That wasn’t your fault.” Booker paused. “Not entirely your fault.”

“But you weren’t the only one culpable,” Copley offered. “And you’ve been exiled where I’ve been dragged into the fold.”

That stung, a small burning jealousy that Booker did his best to push aside. He’d spoken the truth to Andy. He’d held a small hope for less, but after Joe’s rage in the lab, he’d honestly expected more. Much more. The rest of his immortal life, maybe. And he’d deserve it. He swallowed. “How’s that working out for you?”

Copley blew out a long breath. “It is never boring.”

“You should consider speaking to Manvir. He could probably be of assistance.” Gwyn’s voice from the door startled them both, Booker jerking around to look at her. “Sorry, I didn’t think I was sneaking up on you.”

Booker took in the dip of her shoulders and the shadows under her eyes. “You should be resting.”

“I napped a little.” She shrugged and gave them a wan smile. “It wasn’t great. I’ll try again in a bit.”

He frowned. “Dreams?”

She gave a little nod, then moved to one of the other chairs. “So how far out are we?”

“We’ll reach port early tomorrow.”

“Have we been able to get a message out to the others?” Gwyn asked, tipping her neck from side to side until it cracked. Her nose scrunched up at the sound. “Sorry.”

Copley offered her a kind smile of his own. “It’s quite alright. I made contact this morning. They’re still looking for their objective, though they know you’re now safe. Unfortunately, she has other concerning behaviors they feel need to be dealt with.”

“Poor Quỳnh,” Gwyn murmured. 

Booker and Copley both blinked at her. Finally, Copley said, “I’m sorry, perhaps I misunderstood. The woman killed you, kidnapped you, held you captive, snapped your neck, stuffed you in a box, and threw you in the sea to torture you. And you feel sympathy for her?”

Gwyn leaned back in the chair, bringing a hand up to rub at her eyes for a moment. “I’m not excusing the harm she did. Believe me. Or the harm she continues to do.” She paused and glanced at Copley. “Nile told me. But I also know that Quỳnh spent at least part of the five hundred years she suffered on the seafloor believing that the family she loved...the woman she loved, abandoned her. And while I don’t regret what I said to her to make her focus her rage on me, it didn’t probably help. She’s killing priests, yes?”

Copley nodded. 

Gwyn sagged into her chair. “That might be on me, for what I said to force her anger away from Nico.”

“Or she was taking Nicky and not Joe because he was a priest once,” Booker argued. “You can’t seriously be blaming yourself right now.”

“Not blame. Just sadness for the lives lost. And I’m tired.”

“What will you do now?” Copley asked her, echoing his earlier question to Booker.

Instead of answering Copley directly, Gwyn’s attention remained on Booker. “I am not sure I want to risk another visit to Paris. The last two have ended badly for me.” She forced a smile, but the strain read in the tightness in her voice. “I hope you can excuse me, Sébastien.”

Booker’s heart dropped to his stomach, but he willed the disappointment off his face. She’d spoken of wishing more time with him, but how could he blame her. Paris for her held nothing but her deaths. “That is fine, Gwyn.”

“I thought perhaps a change might do you good as well,” she continued, her voice a little softer, her accent flushing out a bit. “I bought a croft in Cymru some years back. I’ve been paying a local family to do the upkeep with the idea that when I truly needed a rest, I’d come home to it. I thought I might go. Stay a while. There’s plenty of room for you to join me.”

“Kimree?” Booker parroted dumbly. 

“Wales,” Copley offered. “It’s what the Welsh call themselves and their country.”

She nodded at the man. “Thank you for acknowledging us as a country.” Her attention turned back to Booker. “No obligation, of course, Sébastien. If you’d rather head back to France, I underst…”

“Yes.” He spoke over her in his haste. “I mean, yes. I’d like to come. Please.”

“Wonderful. I’ll have Manvir help me reach out so the house is ready when we arrive and we have a car to use.” She smiled a little wistfully. “It’s not exactly where my father’s holdings were all those years ago. But close enough. I’m glad I get to share it with you.”

She rose, swaying a little on her feet. Booker hurried forward to steady her. “Let’s get you back to bed. Will it help if I stay while you sleep?”

“It might.” She leaned against him. “Does that mean you forgive me?”

“I’m getting there.”

***

They landed at Port Lairge the following morning, not long after dawn. Copley dealt with the crew, paying them handsomely and sending them off. A different service would come in and clean the ship top to bottom when they’d all left. They all gathered for one last breakfast in the galley.

“So, perhaps we shall come to your Wales for the holidays,” Manvir said to Gwyn. “If Bargitta can get the time away.”

“If not, I could come to Boston. Just let me know.” She had an arm around each of them, sitting between them. They’d be taking a flight home that night from the airport in Waterford. “Maybe I’ll drag Sébastien back with me and make him see modern Boston. Take him to the pub. If he wanted to.”

Booker shrugged. To his right, Nile cackled and nudged him. “You haven’t had fun with Gwyn until you’ve seen her sit in with a houseband.”

Copley’s eyebrow raised. “Oh?”

“The more the merrier, James,” Bargitta said. “They aren’t our holidays, so we don’t mind using them as an excuse just to have friends visit.”

“Now look what you did,” Gwyn sighed, throwing a piece of toast at Nile.

Nile threw it back. “Rattlin. Bog.”

“I don’t understand this conversation,” Booker muttered, picking at his eggs.

“You will,” Nile promised, squeezing his arm. “I expect you to text me about it.”

That had been a surprise when Nile had given him a number Copley had set up for her, a permanent sort of burner that would connect into WhatApps on any phone she was using without tracking data. She’d insisted. She might not be able to come see him yet for things that weren’t literal life or possible permanent death, but this, she’d do.

“Very well.”

Nile finished eating, picking up her plate and carrying it toward the sink. “I should get this squared away. I’ve got a plane to catch too.” 

Andy had sent coordinates for her to rendezvous with them at, to join in the hunt for Quỳnh.

Gwyn extracted herself from the bench, moving easier than the day before and having slept better. She took Nile’s plate. “I’ll get that. Are you all packed? Do you have enough traveling cash?”

“Yes Auntie Gwyn,” Nile sassed her. 

Gwyn just laughed, pulling the other woman in for a tight hug. It lasted a long time, her mouth pressed up near Nile’s ear. When they pulled apart, they both had tears in their eyes. “Be safe, okay.”

“As I can. You too.”

“As I can.”

Within half an hour, Nile had gone, taking a ride share for the airport.

Gwyn finished the dishes, then accepted her returned bags from Paris back from Copley. She merged her previous wardrobe with the new things Bargitta and Manvir had brought her, repacking what was four bags into three. Then she joined the others up on deck.

She took her time hugging Bargitta and then Manvir, who took her hand and held it when she stepped back, running his fingers over the ring. The one that saved her. The one that brought her home. “This never leaves your finger as long as we draw breath.”

“Never,” she replied. “I love you. Both of you. Thank you.”

“Be well,” Bargitta said. “We’ll video chat soon, yes?”

“As soon as I get it up and running at the croft.”

Manvir grabbed and squeezed her one more time. And Gwyn let him, her own arms tight. Then she pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Safe journey. Let me know when you land.”

“It will be the middle of the night.”

“I don’t care.” She smiled. “Go relax before your flight.”

That left Booker, Copley, and Gwyn. “I can give you a lift,” Copley offered. “I have an old friend in Dublin. I’m going to drive up and stay a day or two, catch up, before I fly home.”

“Thank you,” Gwyn said. She followed him down the gangplank, hauling her luggage. Booker followed her. Neither of them looked back.

***

The croft, as Gwyn called it, sat at the end of a long drive in the foothills barely any distance at all from the sea cliffs. When they pulled up to the gate, an older man stood there wearing work rough dungarees and a sweater, a tweed cap on his head. They climbed out. 

“Mr. Davies?” Gwyn asked. Her own Welsh accent had disappeared to a trickle, leaving an unrecognizable American woman in her place.

“You must be Miss Morgan,” the man greeted, coming to shake her hand. “You’re a young thing, twas expecting someone older.”

“Good genetics. My mom looked like a teenager into her forties,” Gwyn offered. “Thank you so much for the work you’ve been doing on the upkeep.”

“Been happy to have it. The wife went in this morning and put fresh linens on all the beds and in the baths. And there’s a bit of food in the larder until you’re ready to do the marketing. She left you an oggie that just needs the oven in the ice box.”

“Brilliant. Thank you.” 

The old man opened the gate and then handed her a ring of keys and wished them a pleasant evening. He wandered off down the drive.

“He’s walking?” Booker asked as they climbed back into the car.

“Apparently,” Gwyn said, putting the Range Rover they’d picked up in Fishguard in drive and heading through the gate, then waiting as Booker hopped out and swung it shut. When he’d climbed back in, she added, “It’s Cymru. We’ve a history of walking. Or ponies.”

When Gwyn had called the place a croft, he’d expected...well, honestly, he expected something out of the shitty BBC historical dramas Joe liked to watch sometimes. The ones that deigned to show the peasants and not just regency ballrooms. But while the farmhouse and barns in front of them clearly had years on them, they were well tended. Fresh white paint covered the walls, and the thatch on the roofs was in good repair. Gwyn parked the Rover near one barn, then climbed out.

“They’ve done well with it. Good.”

“No one’s been checking on it for you?”

“The Davies came highly recommended by the estate agent. They have a smaller place down the hill. I just crossed my fingers.”

Booker blinked at her as she pulled a couple of bags out of the back and then went to open the door.

It opened onto a great room with a couple comfortable looking sofas, a pair of chairs, a television set up, and a wood stove flanked by empty book shelves. Walking through it, they found the dining room, a kitchen, and stairs leading up to the bedrooms.

“There are three bedrooms in the house,” Gwyn said, dropping the bags she’d brought in by the stairs. One master suite upstairs with a bathroom in it, and then a pair of smaller bedrooms that share a second bath.”

Booker nodded, waiting for her directions.

“Or, there’s a small holiday cottage outback in what used to be a blacksmith’s shop. It’s self-contained with its own bathroom and bedroom, and it has a small kitchenette in it.” Gwyn turned to him, a gentle smile on her face. “You are welcome to be in the house with me, or there, if you’d need a bit of space. My feelings won’t be hurt either way.”

“Oh.”

“Think about it, Sébastien. I’ll go get the last of my bags and lock up the Rover.”

“What’s an oggie?” he asked before she could get too far.

“A pastie with lamb, mushrooms, and I gather now they do them with potatoes. I prefer turnips, but a meal’s a meal.” She squeezed his arm as she passed him. “Be back in a moment.”

Booker stood there in the quiet of the Welsh countryside, broken only by the soft tick of the antique clock they’d passed in the dining room. None of the street noise of Paris. Nothing to distract him from himself.

His heart picked up slightly, thudding a marching tattoo in his chest. 

When Gwyn came back, he took her bags from her. “House for now. I can change my mind later?”

“Of course.” She looked around a little. “Welcome to my home. Let’s go see if the beds suck.”

***

The two of them spent the first two days finding a rhythm. Wake up, fix breakfast. Poke around the house and the property. Make notes about what work Gwyn wanted to do, and the supplies needed to do it. Eat lunch. Take a long walk over Gwyn’s land or along the roads and cut-throughs. Come home, have dinner. Spend their evenings talking in light conversation.

“You need books,” Booker pointed out the second evening as they sat in the living room. “These shelves are an abomination.”

“I do own books,” she said, laughing and drinking a glass of mulled apple cider. Though her punk hair style remained, tonight she wore the sweater Bargitta had bought her and a pair of leggings and they fought back the chill with the little wood stove. “I have a cache not far from here with some lovely pieces in it, assuming it’s intact. I thought I might go check tomorrow if you want to come along. Maybe stop by my church as well.”

“Your church?” Booker arched an eyebrow at her. “As in your parish?”

“As in my namesake. Though they spelled it wrong. Gwenog with an e. Honestly.” She sighed, a noise so utterly aggrieved Booker had to laugh. “I know, that’s histrionic. The notion of standardized spelling is barely as old as you are. But still.”

“St. Gwenog’s? Really?”

“Stained glass and everything. Looks not a thing like me of course, they did it almost a thousand years after everyone in the village who knew me was dead.” Still, she smiled. “It’s the thought that counts though, right?”

“Were you actually canonized? By the Pope?”

“That wasn’t as much a thing in the sixth century. If the local church thought you were a saint, and the people started treating you like one, you were. The Vatican didn’t start digging its heels in against local cults of saints until much later.” Gwyn swirled the amber cider around in her glass. “I might have made it. I rose from the dead in front of witnesses and then supposedly transcended bodily to heaven. I suppose it depends on if anyone had a miracle after I disappeared.”

“You blaspheme for a saint,” Booker argued, sipping his own drink.

“Never that. I believe my Lord can do miracles if it serves the greater good to do them. I’ve seen some in my time. Some would argue we’re living miracles.”

Booker stood, leaving his drink on the end table. He moved away from the fire, standing next to the mullioned front window and looking out the distorted glass into the dark night. 

“It’s never felt like a miracle. Not to me.”

Gwyn didn’t say anything at first, and for a moment, he worried he’d upset her. But when he glanced back, her gaze was on him, open and waiting. 

“Do you know how I died?”

“I do,” she said. “I had the dreams.”

“Then you know that I wasn’t brave, like Nile. I wasn’t on the field of combat, like Nicky and Joe.” He laughed, something small and bitter. “I was a criminal, sentenced to the army. Forced to march into a long, cold, brutal suicide. So I deserted. I refused to starve or freeze to death for Napoleon's greater glory. They caught me. They hung me. A coward.”

“It isn’t cowardly to walk away from a fight you do not believe in, Sébastien.”

“Regardless.” He turned and leaned against the wall by the window casing. “I hung there for three days, dying over and over. All I could think of was that this was God’s punishment for my sins. Being a criminal. A deserter. That I would be denied even purgatory.”

The look on her face almost stopped him, but he kept going.

“And then, after I’d managed to get myself down. After I staggered out of Russia, and Andromache found me, she told me I would live like this for years. With visions of a woman dying repeatedly in agony in my head. That I should give up my home, my family.” His bitter laughter echoed loud in the still night. “And she was right. I tried to keep them. My one and only good thing. My beloved. My darling sons. And they grew to despise me.”

“Oh, Sébastien.” Gwyn set her own glass down, rising slowly and approaching him with the slow caution of someone approaching a feral dog. 

“I heard you tell Manvir on the ship that it had to be you. But it should have been me.” He closed his eyes, unable to look at her. “It should have been me. My way to pay penance for what I tried to do to them all. Even if your ring hadn’t worked… Well, it is what I would have deserved.”

Small hands cupped his face. “No, Sébastien. It could not have been you.”

He opened his eyes, searching her brown ones. “Why not?

“Come, sit on the couch. Not the chair.” She reached down, taking his hand and tugging him to the closest couch before sitting down. She pulled him until he sat next to her. Then she wrapped one arm around his shoulders and held his hand with the other. “There are three reasons. And I am going to be very blunt about each of them with you, because I care. Okay?”

A lump formed in his throat, so he simply nodded.

“First, for all she has clearly dreamed of you too, Quỳnh didn’t hate you. Or blame you. And she may have assumed that given your exile, you would have been no great loss to the others if she’d put you in the box.” The words cut deep, but Gwyn’s hand immediately squeezed his. “She would have been wrong. But the point stands, I couldn’t see her trying to take you or Nile. It would have had to be Andromache, Nicolo, or Yusuf. Or me.”

He grunted an assent, the best he was able to do.

“The second point is that while the others care about me, I was always transient in their lives. Those years searching for Quỳnh were the longest stretch of time I’d ever spent with them. And then I disappeared for two centuries. You and Nile have known me barely months. Losing me would hurt for a time, but you’d move on from it.” Her smile remained through that whole speech, and Booker opened his mouth to argue. Gwyn shook her head. “You, however, are their brother.”

“Who betrayed them.”

“Betrayal cuts the deepest when the person holding the knife is someone you love.” She searched his face. “Maybe they did a shitty job of saying that to you, I don’t know. None of us were ever the same after we lost her. It broke all of us in a way I don’t think we knew we could break. Her death, if it had been like Lykon, would have been kinder. But they love you. Andromache. Nicolo. Yusuf.”

“You weren’t there,” Booker argued. “You didn’t see them. Joe was enraged. And Nicky could barely look at me.”

“They are hurting. They need to work through why it happened, just as you do. But you can be infuriated at someone and still love them, Sébastien.” She paused and a mirthful grin pulled at her gentle smile. “I’ve known Andromache for a millennium and a half almost. Trust me when I tell you I’ve had the practice at being both.”

That startled a laugh out of him almost against his will.

“And the third thing?” he asked, after they sat with the echo of his laugh for a moment.

Gwyn’s smile fell away for the first time. “The third thing is the hardest.”

Booker swallowed around the lump in his throat again. “Go on.”

“Death and I, we’re old friends. I’ve walked beside her all my life. She took my mother when I was a little girl. She held my hand when the man who thought to claim me as my husband grew so incensed I would refuse him that he drove a dagger into my heart. Then she let go.” She paused. “She has held my hand hundreds of times since. Perhaps a thousand. And someday, when the time ordained for me by heaven comes, I will greet her with wide open arms and walk away at her side.”

Booker nodded, unable to say anything.

“But you, Sébastien. You, mon ami, you chase Death as young men chase a lover. When they believe that if they can only have this one bright, shining woman for their own, it will solve everything for them. All their pain, all their loss, all their mistakes.” She sighed softly. “You chase her across an endless, starless night, because that’s all you can see in the wake of her beauty. And so you miss the splendour of the world all around you. The sun sets and the actual stars, the perfect little cakes and the way waves break at high tide. And people. You miss people, Sébastien.”

The air left his lungs, leaving him gasping. 

“Those like us cannot catch Death, Sébastien. We can’t master her. We can only wait until she is ready to come to us. So you have the choice to chase her through an endless, melancholic eternity. Or to stop running, and try living again.”

“Melancholic?” He asked hoarsely.

“An old term from when doctors still thought we suffered poor humors and suicides were too often ascribed to weak faith and possession by demons.” Gwyn replied. “Later doctors called it melancholia. And now depression.”

He shook his head. “What good does that do me to know? That’s a...normal people take pills for that, right? We can’t do that.”

“We can’t. But they also talk to trained professionals. People who can help them work through the issues that make the problem worse.” She shrugged softly. “It’s helped me.”

“You had a...what, an alienist?”

“A psychologist. A therapist. And more than once.” She laughed, an easy sound at his antiquated name for doctors of mental health. “Talking to someone helped. Even if I had to...bend the facts of what I was telling them. I am sure between James and Manvir, we could figure out something, if you wanted to try it.”

Therapy. The idea of exposing himself to someone who wasn’t like them again, after what came of speaking to Copley chilled him. “Couldn’t I just keep talking to you?”

“I’m happy to talk to you as often as you wish, Sébastien. But I’m not a trained therapist. I can do my best, but I also need you to know that you could get better help as well.”

God, he’d never. They’d barely begun to consider mental health beyond lunatic asylums in his youth. “Can I think about it?”

“You can.” She brought her hand up and pressed it gently against his chest. “In the meantime, keep wearing this.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. His hand came up and covered hers. “Nicky gave it to you, didn’t he?”

“He did.” She smiled gently. “But I think you need to be closer to him than I do just now.”

Unwinding herself, she stood. “I’m tired. I’m going to turn in.”

Booker rose. “Can I…Could I have…”

Before he could finish the sentence, Gwyn’s arms were wrapped around him, hugging him tightly. She held on until he let go of her. “Sleep well, Sébastien. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Good night, Gwyn.”

***

“Merde,” Booker whispered hoarsely the next day, standing next to Gwyn in a sanctuary nearly three hundred years older than him and staring at the stained glass before them. “It’s not even close.”

“I did always wish to be taller,” she offered contemplatively as she gazed up at the tall, blonde saint in the window. “Never that fair, though. I’d burn in the sun.”

They both began to giggle, trying to keep it down less they offender the group of pensioner tourists listening to their guide at the other then of the nave. Gwyn nodded toward the door, leading them back out and into the church yard beyond.

Here her steps slowed. “This wasn’t half so full when last I saw it.” She moved away from him, walking through the stones. She stopped every so often, reading a name or gently brushing a bit of lichen free.

Booker followed, his own eyes noting the changing styles scattered throughout the graves. Different, perhaps, then those he knew best in France, but with enough echoes to read if one knew what to look for. Here an urn and willow. There a winged cherub. His feet drew up in front of a stone, something white and worn with age, topped with a barely discernible lamb. 

He could make out only a first name, Owain, and an age, seven months. The date had worn away. “Rest well, little one.”

“Poor thing,” Gwyn’s voice drifted on the crisp air near him. 

“Losing children is…” His voice trailed off, and his hand dropped down, his fingers tracking over the cold stone of the lamb’s wool.

“Agony.” Something in Gwyn’s voice brought his eyes to the side, and he found her lifting a hand up and wiping a stray tear. “Like a fiber torn from your heart that nothing replaces.”

Booker stood stock still. Gwyn, with her spiritual and platonic marriages. Her adherence to chastity. “Paris?” he asked, horrified.

“No. No, I don’t think we can have children after our first deaths, but I drank so much rue tea that first month after.” She shook her head a little and stepped back. “No, I never had a child of my own. But in many noble houses, they’d bring in women of chaste virtue as companions for their daughters. I helped raise many who I loved like my own.”

“All of them are gone now.”

“Yes. None were like us. Some I buried if death took them young. Some I said goodbye to when they wed, or entered holy orders, or when their families dismissed me from service.” Gwyn turned to look back at the church. “I’ve missed them all since.”

“How can you stand it?” Booker longed to reach out and shake her. “How can you love something so much and stand to lose it?”

Gwyn turned to him, her face a mask of gentle knowing that drove him to distraction. “If you had known before you ever met your wife, had your sons, that this was your destiny, would you have turned her aside?”

For all her hands remained at her sides, she might have slapped him.

“I loved them!” His voice rose, startling the crows in one of the churchyard trees into flight. 

“I know you did. But if you could have saved yourself the heartbreak of losing them by never having them, never loving her, would you have?”

Would he? He closed his eyes, hearing Jean-Pierre’s vile invective spit at him from his little boy’s death bed. How if he truly loved his son, he would save him. Make him like he was. Take away his agony and suffering. He watched the passion in his beloved’s eyes grow cold as she grew stooped and grey and he did not. How she began accusing him of infidelity. How his other son shunned his company. Stopped inviting him to their homes.

But that had been after his first death. Before he’d left from the war, he’d been her beloved Bastian. Their beloved Papa. His sons’ hero. His wife’s lover. If he had only not come home. If he had only left them to believe he had died with honor. 

But could he wish them from existence? Wish to never know the taste of his wife’s lips? The rapture of their joining?

“No.” It came out a croak. “I couldn’t.”

“Remember the sea glass, Sébastien? You’ve been holding on to the agony of the ending. Try letting go of it and thinking more on happier times.” She reached out and took his hand. “That is how I do it. Memories of playing and songs and hugs and laughter. How I can stand to love and let go.”

Booker huffed. “You make it sound easy.”

“It’s incredibly hard. The most important things are.” She wrapped an arm around his waist, hugging him tightly from the side. “Shall we go see if that cache I made is still standing after a hundred years?”

Booker recognized the change in topic for the out it was and shook his head. “Fifty says it’s long gone.”

“Loser buys lunch instead.”

“Done.”

Of course, Booker ended up buying lunch as the vault in the basement of a building in Pembroke remained after all these years, and once Gwyn had established with the bank that she was the proper owner to it by right of descent, she’d gone right in and helped herself. He was pounds poorer on decent pub fare, but Gwyn had gifted him an absolutely stunning copy of the first edition of _Silas Marner_ to make up for it.

They sat, nursing two pints of hard cider in companionable quiet for a while after the server cleared away the main course.

“So, what now?” he asked once the waiter had gone.

“I thought we might stop for more groceries, and then head home,” Gwyn said, finishing the last of her pint. “Unless you want to try to find a bookstore. I admit that I have more shelves than I had books in the cache.”

“That isn’t what I meant.” Booker fiddled with his napkin. “Are you planning to...I don’t know, start farming sheep or something?”

“Goodness, no. Smelly awful things, sheep. Dumb as posts, most of them, until you get a wily one, and then the doors of hell spring loose, and all the demons are here.” 

Booker stared at her for a long moment until she burst out laughing. 

“I’m sorry, your face right now. But no, not sheep. I might consider a good Welsh pony, maybe some chickens, but I hadn’t given it much thought.”

“So you’re just going to be idle a while? Do nothing?”

Gwyn shrugged. “Even in my last identity before the others found me, when I went back to college again, it wasn’t really doing nothing. I still did all this activism work. Then in the job after, and with the protests. It was important. But also draining. And then…”

She trailed off, and Booker kicked himself. Of course. 

“You want to rest.”

“I haven’t really in…” Gwyn paused, seeming to count to herself. “Almost a century. Not for any significant period of time. But I won’t be wholly idle. If there is any help I can be to James Copley, I will. Also, it might be nice, getting involved in a local community again and doing some basic good.”

“I see.” Booker fidgeted. “I guess that I...I don’t know what to do next.”

“What do you want to do?” Gwyn asked gently. 

Booker sat there, looking at the third of a glass of cider remaining, then set it down on the table undrunk and picked up his water instead. He’d felt less need to drink since coming here. Nightmares still woke him, but didn’t consume him. He didn’t need to drink himself stupid to get through the dark hours.

But he found himself at a loss. He’d spent years as the team’s point man, scouting jobs, working his contacts, forging their identities, and cleaning up their traces. Since the days after his last son died, one job after another after another. Small breaks in between, and sometimes it was only him and Andy. But he never stopped moving. Never stopped lining up the next shot. The next gig.

Now, Copley played that role. And maybe Nile, to some extent. He had no idea.

But without it, who was he?

“I have no idea.”

“Well, you’re welcome as long as you need.” Gwyn smiled at him. “My home is yours, Sébastien.”

“Merci, ma souer.”


	4. You've Been Holding On A Long Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Booker gets hobbies and a therapist, Gwyn and Booker both get a visit from James Copley and someone new to love, Gwyn remembers why breaking horses is hard, and an old threat reappears.

The first thing Booker acquired for himself in Wales was a second hand motorbike that ran intermittently and sounded more than a little like a firing squad on bad days. He paid to have it hauled to the farm, along with spare parts and a compliment of tools, taking over half of one of the barn outbuildings. Most mornings after breakfast, he worked on that while Gwyn supervised contractors out to do repairs on fences and paddocks, or the painters getting rid of the hideous wallpaper choices in the bathrooms. 

In the afternoons, after lunch, she sometimes left him in charge of the place while she ran down into Fishguard or Pembroke on what she called boring as bollock errands. She came home those evenings with the ingredients for quick dinners and usually a bakery treat as a thank you. Sometimes a new book for him. 

At the end of the first month, Booker found her contemplating the slope of the back garden. 

“I’ve been thinking,” he began, and then paused as she turned to him, a flash of apprehension on her face. “About the guest cottage. Would it bother you if I moved my things into it?”

“Oh. No, not at all.” Gwyn frowned. “Is everything all right?”

“It is. Just thinking I’d like a little more space. I thought…” He paused. “I thought I might try painting. It gets good light, and I could use the front room as a studio.”

“Then it’s yours.” She stepped forward suddenly, hugging him. Letting him go, she craned her neck back to look up at him. “Do you need anything?”

“I have some things at my place in Paris. I may take a quick trip over and fetch them.” He scuffed a toe from his boot on the ground. “You are welcome to come, but I’d understand if you didn’t want to.”

Gwyn let out a soft sigh. “I don’t think I’m quite up to it.” She paused. “I spoke to James the other day.”

Booker took a small step back. He’d been using WhatsApp to text Nile, just short things like hello and are you safe. Her responses were longer, but vague. “And?”

“Nothing yet. Quỳnh’s proving very adaptable to the modern world.” Gwyn shuddered a little. “Just, if you’re going, be careful.”

“She has no reason to hate me, remember. And no reason not to think you aren’t still where she put you.”

“I know,” Gwyn said, reaching out and grabbing his hand. “But you are my family too, Sébastien. I love you and your safety matters.”

Why, a small part of him wanted to cry? He still didn’t deserve it.

“I’ll be careful.”

“Good.” She kept hold of his hand. “I had thought to invite James down for a few days sometime soon, to have that conversation with him I promised. Do you want me to do it while you are gone?”

“No.” The word fell out of his mouth faster than he could consider. His choices had been his own, but he and Copley had done their deeds together. While the team might have formed something of a fractured trust with the man to replace Booker’s skills, Booker didn’t want Gwyn alone with him. Even if Copley helped save her. “No. It would be good to see him.”

Gwyn searched his face for a moment. “Okay. If you’re sure. Do you want me to help you move the things you have here now?”

“That would be wonderful.” Booker took a deep breath, then slowly stepped forward, his arms tentatively open. Gwyn stepped easily back into them, letting him initiate the hug. “Thank you.”

She stayed in his hold as long as he held on. “Of course.”

*** 

James Copley looked out of place in his pressed London chinos and smart sweater, sitting at the old farmhouse kitchen table Gwyn had found at an antique shop to replace the horrible modern thing the house had come with. She and Booker had spent two days carefully sanding it and restoring it, keeping the gouges and marks from hot things over the years and just taking the finish down enough to seal it with linseed oil.

Booker watched him cautiously from the other end as Gwyn brought out a tea tray loaded with cups and pot, sandwiches and pastries from the bakery they liked in Fishguard. Copley smiled. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

“Thank you for agreeing to come to us. I hope it wasn’t too inconvenient.” Gwyn began pouring tea, handing Booker his first, fixed how he liked it, then set a cup in front of Copley with both the milk pitcher and the sugar dish. 

“Not with your high speed Wi-Fi. I can keep up with them from here.”

“Still no luck with our lost lamb?”

“Lambs don’t tend to leave body counts,” Booker noted from his end of the table, entering the conversation for the first time. “Is she still killing?”

“Not for a while now, which is making the tracking harder.”

Gwyn stirred her own tea, sweetened with honey only. “Maybe the team should leave her be for now. If she’s not actively a threat, it might be best not to antagonize her.”

“And the five men she did kill?”

Gwyn sighed. “Did we look into them?”

Copley looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“Besides being priests, did they have anything else in common? Age? Nationality?”

Copley shook his head. “Not obviously.”

Gwyn ran a finger around the rim of her cup. “Have you tried running them against the Vatican’s pedophile priests lists?”

Copley nearly dropped his cup. “What?! How would she even think to…”

“One priest for every century she was on the ocean’s floor. Quỳnh isn’t deranged, she’s enraged. She took revenge on those of us who abandoned her, and now she’s taken revenge on those who put her there.” Gwyn glanced at him and shrugged. “Sébastien is a not inconsiderable hacker and she was in his head in her dreams for years.”

Copley groaned. “I’ll try to see if I can get access.”

“Ask Manvir,” Gwyn suggested. “He likes to use his powers for good.”

“Maybe you should be their spymaster,” Copley mumbled, mildly petulant. 

“No, thank you,” Gwyn laughed. “I’m just older and more experienced. If you live through enough Byzantine courts, you learn a thing or three about people and their motivations.”

Booker snorted and grabbed a petit four. “Isn’t going back more than once the definition of insanity?”

“I’ve never claimed to be wholly sane.”

“Byzantine courts?” Copley asked, attempting to be sly and failing utterly.

“Yes, Sébastien has told me about your history murder boards.”

Copley nearly choked on his own tongue.

“No offense intended. No one else, as far as I am aware, has looked at things from such a macro level of history to figure the secret out before.” Gwyn raised her tea cup. “Well done. It’s a pity you missed me, but that’s not really your fault. I erased myself from their narrative for the last two hundred years, which I think was the easiest for you to track.”

“Photography,” he agreed.

“Brilliant inconvenient nuisance. Especially if you aren’t willing or able to drastically change your appearance. Or you’re Andromache, for whom such change is nigh on impossible, looking like she does.” She shrugged. “And of course it is harder for the men. Women can change our clothes in a thousand ways based on place and class, but that cad Beau Brummell has been setting the fashion of mens wear for nearly two hundred years. And he’s not even immortal.”

Booker burst out laughing at that, and Gwyn’s head swivelled. 

“I am right and you know it, Sébastien! You remember when men wore colors! It took until the last few decades for suits to get really daring again.” She wagged a finger at him. “Why, someone in 1900 told me Navy suits would be gauche. Navy! I once danced with an archduke wearing the most stunning shade of teal once.”

“Wait, wait,” Copley cried, pushing aside his tea cup and pulling out a small moleskine notebook. “What archduke? When?”

“Now you’ve done it,” Booker muttered, surprised to find his suspicion of Copley draining away. “You’ve awoken the beast.”

“That was the point of the visit,” Gwyn pointed out, scooting her chair back. “Not that you aren’t welcome otherwise, James. And I’d forgotten. I’ll be back.”

She left them then, heading up the stairs

Booker stared at Copley, who fidgeted and looked at his tea. Now that they were alone and not focused on pulling Gwyn from the ocean or getting her back to shore, he could see the tells. Deeper furrows to the man's wrinkles. Nails less than perfectly manicured. Shoulders slightly slumped. Copley didn’t look like shit, per se. But he looked tired.

“Are they running you that ragged?”

“They’re...somewhat demanding.” A diplomatic answer.

Booker snorted. “They may be my family and I love them, but they can be assholes. It’s all right to say so.”

Copley groaned softly. “On the one hand, I still have the pile of money from Merrick in an offshore account and they are paying me,” he said. “Plus, I have a pension from the Company. On the other hand, I’m not sure it's worth the stress. Might have been better to just be eliminated.”

“Why do you people call it that? ‘The Company.’”

“Because we are spies and telling people we are spies isn’t great for covertness.”

“The Company is better?”

“The Company is shorthand among ourselves. A little credit please.”

Booker laughed. “Still, you look tired as shit.”

“It’s...a lot.”

The words are out of his mouth before he can stop them. “Anything I can do to help?”

Copley went silent.

Merde. Right. Of course there isn’t.

“Shit, never mind. Forget I said…”

“Maybe.”

“What?”

“Maybe. From time to time. If we didn’t tell them? A second set of eyes on intel would be helpful.”

Booker considered the idea. “Joe and Nicky would murder us both if they found out.”

“I’m fairly certain they want to murder us both anyway.”

“Yeah, but with you, murder would stick.”

“Who are we murdering?” Gwyn asked as she walked back in, carrying a nondescript office binder. “With the understanding that we don’t do it inside. I have hills for that.”

Both men broke out into peals of laughter.

“Joe and Nicky. Murdering us,” Booker explained. “We’ll try not to make a mess.”

“Oh, they won’t. They only do murder people if Andromache lets them.” Gwyn turned and handed the binder to Copley. “This should be a good starting place. I broke it out by century tabs and then decades. I tried to leave you room for notes as you ask me questions. It’s saved locally on an unconnected to the internet machine hooked up to an non networked printer, but do try not to lose it.”

Copley blinked at her, then opened it. And stopped breathing for a moment.

“You might have just murdered him,” Booker pointed out.

Gwyn lightly thumped Copley’s back. “Breath, James.”

“This...is going to save me so much research.”

“It also cross-references any points in time when I was traveling with Andromache, Nicolo, Yusuf, and Quỳnh, so you should be able to fill in that history too.” 

“I think I love you,” Copley mumbled, already lost in the pages. 

“Platonically only. I’m otherwise not available.” She set a selection of small sandwiches and pastries on a plate in his reach, then smiled at Booker. “Read anything good lately?”

Booker just laughed.

***

He took an opportunity to invite Copley to hang out in the garage for a little bit with him the next morning. “How are you? Really?” he asked, tentatively as the man handed him a tool so he could work on removing the bike’s petrol tank. He suspected half its problem stemmed from bad gas and the whole fuel injection system would need to be flushed and cleaned.

“Tired. Keeping bizarre hours. Fielding requests that make me think Andromache is fucking with me as a means of punishment.” He shrugged. “But otherwise, I’m actually doing well. I...I started talking to someone.”

“Yeah?” Booker said, looking up. 

“Ms. Freeman suggested it. Pointed out that perhaps if I had gotten more help for my grief when I lost…” he trailed off. “Well. Anyways. It’s been helping.”

“How did you even find someone you could talk to, between what you did before, with the CIA and now?”

“There’s a list. Sort of passed around on the quiet in the intelligence community. People who are discrete.”

“Huh.”

Booker finally got the tank free and set it aside, grimacing at what he could see inside it and around the fuel intake. No wonder the thing backfired like damn Model T.

“You seem...better.”

He glanced back up. “Yeah?”

“I haven’t seen you drink since I’ve been here.”

“I do. Sometimes. But not as much.”

“She’s good company for you, Gwyn.”

Booker shrugged. “She is. She actually suggested I might want to...talk to someone. Someone not her.”

“Oh?” Copley’s face held no judgment. 

“Said she’d had that kind of help when she needed it, and that someone actually trained to it might be good for me.” He sat back on his calves. “No idea how I’d even find someone though.”

“I could...that is, if you’d let me help, I could assist with that.”

“How do I talk around the immortality shit though?”

Copley pushed off the workbench that held his tools, coming to squat down next to him. “The thing that bonded us in our plan was grief. You for your family, me for my wife. You don’t have to tell your therapist exactly when you lost them. Just that it was years ago and you’ve struggled to move on. Start there.”

Booker chewed the inside of his cheek for a moment. “Yeah, that makes sense.” He could do that. He could at least give it a try. See if it helped. “I’d like that. If you could help me with it.”

“It would be my pleasure.” Copley offered him his hand.

Booker took it. 

***

“I am about to go spend an obscene amount of money, want to help?” Gwyn asked, after he answered her knock on the cottage door.

“Define obscene,” Booker said, wiping clean his brush. The landscape study of the hills above the farm was coming together, but it wasn’t anything that couldn’t wait. 

“North of ridiculous but less than absurd?” She shook her hands out. “I feel the need to do some reckless good and I have some targets in mind, but it requires shopping and I could use a second pair of hands.”

“Just let me get cleaned up.”

A few hours later, it turned out what when Gwyn said obscene, she meant it. But every stop brought a smile to his face. They’d started at a department store where she’d bought socks, underwear, basic shoes, jeans, shirts, coats, and gloves in an array of sizes for children, teenagers, and adults. After loading them into the Rover, they’d headed on to the toy store where Gwyn had him help her load more bags full of dolls, action figures, puzzles, learning toys, games, and more. And then finally, the bookstore.

Smiling at him, she’d simply pointed to the children's and young adult section and said, “Go wild.”

After they’d packed the Rover to the gills and climbed back in, he asked, “Why are we doing this?”

“Well, one, it helps the local economy. Every one of those stores is locally owned. We probably spent more today than they’re making in a week. It helps them stay afloat.” She signaled and pulled out. “And two, because now we get to go spread joy.”

The first place they went was a shelter in Pembroke, splitting half the haul and carrying it inside. Gwyn had called ahead and asked if they took donations and what they had need of, but clearly they hadn’t been expecting this. 

“Oh, Missus,” the woman working the desk said. “All of this? Are you sure?”

“We’re very sure. Can we help fold things for the clothes closet?”

“Oh, we can do that. But would you like to hand out some of the toys and books? Most of the families are in the day room.”

“We’d love to.” They juggled around bags, passing the clothes to the woman and a second worker called out to help. A third woman, the director, showed up to lead them to the day room. Gwyn linked arms to Booker, bringing him along.

There were families crowded in the room on worn couches and rag rugs. A tv in the corner played a cartoon about dogs in uniforms.

“Everyone,” the director said, “some friends have come today with gifts.”

The kids looked up, wide eyed, some clinging to their parents. Gwyn gently tugged him forward. “Hello. I’m Gwyn, and this is my dear friend, Sébastien. We have some new things for you. Books and toys and games.” She sat down on the floor and opened the bags, carefully taking things out and setting them on the floor. “It’s okay to come look.”

Booker mirrored her, sitting next to her and following suit.

Soon, they were surrounded by children oohing and ahhing, looking at things, but still hesitant to touch. One little girl looked longingly at a doll near his feet.

“What is your name?” he asked.

She turned, hiding her face in her mother’s leg. 

The mother, who looked barely much older than a child herself, chuckled. “She is my Evangeline.” 

“What a beautiful name! There is a very famous, very beautiful poem about a brave girl named Evangeline,” he said. The little girl peaked out at him. “Maybe you will read it when you are grown up.”

“I’m three,” the little girl whispered.

“Ah, I am mistaken then,” he offered. “You are already grown up.” Picking up the doll, he held it out to her. “Do you think you could perhaps take care of this little doll? She needs someone brave to look after her.”

The girl took it. Glancing around, Booker grabbed a picture book. “And perhaps this, so you can read with her.”

“Thank you,” the little girl said.

“Truly, thank you,” her mother added, tears in her eyes. “Come, darling. Let’s let other kids pick.”

From there, they helped each child and even the teens pick out a toy and book, or for some of the teens, a few books instead of toys. Anything left over went into the communal toys and books in the day room.

“This is...I can’t begin to tell you what a joy.” The director, a woman named Susannah said. “Thank you so much.”

Gwyn handed her a card. “As we get closer to Christmas, if there’s more of a need, or other needs, please, let me know.”

As they climbed back in the Rover, Booker found himself smiling and wiping his eyes. “That was...It reminded me of Christmas eve, when my boys were little.”

“I can see that,” Gwyn replied. “You were so good with them. I think that little girl may be half in love with you.”

He laughed. “No. Just with the doll and the book.”

“Okay, prince charming,” she laughed. “Want to do it again?”

She drove them along the coastal road up to a second shelter, this on in Fishguard. Again, they were expected, but there was shock at the amount of largess they’d brought.

“Never seen the like outside of the Christmas drive,” said the director, Donna.

“Did everyone get something?” Gwyn asked. 

The woman frowned, glancing around and then sighed. “No, but...well, it’s a difficult case.”

“Oh?” Booker watched Gwyn lean in slightly, everything in her posture inviting confession. “Is there anything we can do to help?”

“No...I don’t imagine. It’s just heartbreaking.” Donna nodded back down the hall away from the day room where one door stood mostly closed. “We’ve a teenager with us. No parents.”

“Runaway?” Booker asked.

“No. We’d have called the parents then.” Donna huffed. “They’re...different, and their parents turned them out.”

Gwyn stiffened. “Different how?”

“Well, their parents said they wouldn’t take their daughter back until she stopped claiming to be a boy.”

“Merde,” Booker murmured.

“How long?” Gwyn asked. “How long has he been with you?”

Donna breathed out a little. “Almost a week. I’ve made sure the child makes it to school, and they’re doing their best. Social Services has been trying to find them a placement, but…”

“Right.” Gwyn looked at him, and Booker knew. He knew where her mind was running. “My friend and I need to step outside. We’ll be back shortly.”

The door had barely closed before Booker shook his head. “This is a horrible idea, Gwyn.”

“Why?”

“Because this isn’t a noble household in the year seven hundred. It’s so much harder to disappear now.” He glanced back at the door. “You didn’t even ask how old the child is. How many years until they could be on their own.”

“Those are reasons. Not good ones.”

“What are your good reasons for doing it then?” he demanded.

“Because there is a child through those doors. A child whose family threw him away for not living up to expectations. And I have a house and money and a heart to love him with for as long as he needs me to. If I walk away, can you tell me someone else is going to come along? I spent years in Boston representing the children the system chewed up and spat back out. Don’t ask me not to do this, Sébastien. Please.”

Booker leaned against the wall of the building, running a hand over his face. “I can’t be a father again, Gwyn. I can’t take the grief.”

“I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you to be my friend Sébastien who stays in the cottage on my property and is sometimes the fun uncle.”

He laughed a little wetly. “You think I’m fun?”

“I think you’re getting there. You have a motorcycle. That’s fun, right?”

Booker barked out a laugh. “This is still insane.”

“If you can’t stay for it, I understand. But I can’t walk away from this, Sébastien.”

He took a long, slow breath. 

Uncle. He’d never gotten to be an uncle before. Hadn’t the first clue how. But Gwyn stared up at him with her fierce brown eyes, so full of love and hope and everything good. The first good he’d known in a long time. He could try. For her.

“I reserve the right to say I told you so.”

Gwyn hugged him. “Deal.”

Then she pulled out her phone and called Copley. “James, it’s Gwyn. I need your help.”

Somehow, in a few short hours, Copley managed to get both Gwyn and Booker’s current aliases onto a list of approved UK emergency foster carers. Booker waited in the hall as Gwyn knocked on the door jam of the industrial shelter room. 

The child sitting with their arms around their knees on the bed had short cropped ginger hair and grey steel rimmed glasses. They blinked at the intruder on their privacy. “Yes.”

“Hi, my name’s Gwyn. Can I come in?”

“Um, sure.”

Gwyn stepped into the room, pulling the little stool from under the built in desk and tugging it over by the bed. “My friend Sébastien and I were the ones who brought the presents around earlier. We didn’t get a chance to give you yours.”

“I figured I was too old.”

Booker handed Gwyn the book he’d found in the stack they’d bought, one that no one had chosen. Thankfully. 

“No one’s too old for presents. Here.” She handed it to him.

The boy took it, looking wide eyed at the vibrant character in a flower crown on the cover, then turning it over to read the description. When he looked up, there were tears. “I’ve…I’ve never gotten to read something like this before. Thank you.”

“My pronouns are she/her,” Gwyn offered. “Do you mind telling me the name you’re comfortable with and your pronouns?”

“He/Him!” The boy’s face lit up now, even as tears kept falling. “I’m Ioan.”

“It’s wonderful to meet you, Ioan.” Gwyn glanced at Booker.

“Oh! Um, He/Him as well.”

“He’s still learning,” she whispered sotto voce. 

Ioan giggled. 

“Ioan, Miss Donna told me why you’ve been at the shelter. It so happens that I have a croft up in the hills. I’ve lots of room. Sébastien is staying with me, but he has a guest house on the property.” The boy’s eyes went wide. “Would you like to come and stay with me too? I’ve got all the correct permissions with the social services people, and they’ve okayed it.”

“Really, Miss?”

“Gwyn. And yes, really. For as long as you need.”

The crying began in earnest then as skinny arms wrapped around her neck and the boy tucked his face into the hollow of her throat. “Thank you, Miss Gwyn. I promise to be good. I promise. Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me, Ioan.” She stroked the boy’s hair gently, and it reminded Booker so much of his wife with his sons, his heart ached. “I’m sorry your parents didn’t protect you like they ought to have. And I’m so glad I can be here to do it. It’s my privilege. Now, let’s pack your things and go home.”

The boy lifted his head, smiling brightly through his tears first at Gwyn and then at Booker, and the ache in Booker’s chest shifted to a sort of fierce protectiveness.

Merde, he was so very fucked.

***

The first few days Ioan lived at the croft, Booker showed up for meals and otherwise made himself scarce. Ultimately, the boy would be Gwyn’s to raise for the next few years into adulthood. And while Booker liked the kid, he wanted to make sure she was the one he had the opportunity to bond with.

Ioan, however, didn’t seem to get the message. Or perhaps, Gwyn didn’t.

On the second night, a Sunday, after Gwyn had driven Ioan up to Swansea to buy clothes and toiletries and whatever he wanted to decorate the bedroom he’d picked out in the house, the three of them sat around a meal of Gwyn’s shepherd's pie, salad, and a cake picked up on the way home for dessert.

“Sébastien?”

“Hmm?” he responded, mid sip of water.

“Gwyn says you’re French.”

Booker glanced across the table at Gwyn, sitting back in her chair and smiling at him encouragingly. “I am, yes.”

“I’m taking French in school, and I wondered if maybe you’d mind talking with me in it sometimes. So I can practice?”

Booker raised an eyebrow. “Gwyn is also fluent in French.”

“Yes, but my accent is almost more Quebecois than true French. I’m happy to join in, but I don’t want to mess up Ioan’s pronunciation.”

Sneaky little shit of a woman. He narrowed his eyes at her. She raised one eyebrow back at him. Ioan looked between them like he was watching a tennis match. Finally, Booker nodded. “Oui. Maybe a half hour every night after dinner? As we eat dessert?”

“Merci, Sébastien!” Ioan beamed at him. 

“And you can teach him to swear,” Gwyn added, “But Ioan, you aren’t allowed to use those at school.”

The boy laughed. “Deal.”

After the table had been cleared and Ioan had headed upstairs to get ready for bed and school the next day, Booker sat with a small dram of whisky across from Gwyn. “What was that about?”

“He worried he’d run you out of the house. So he wanted to make sure you felt included.”

Booker’s heart turned over in his chest. “Oh. I see.”

“He also thought for a brief moment we were courting, and he was in the way. I cleared that up.”

“Merde,” he breathed. “Merci.”

“You’re welcome. I explained that we’re old friends, and you’re here because France had become too painful after a death in the family.” She swirled her own glass, taking a slow sip of her drink. “Close enough to the truth.”

Booker nodded. “He seems like a good kid.”

“I want to flog his parents, but I know that wouldn’t change a thing. So I’m focusing on giving him the love he’s missed out on.”

Booker raised his glass in a silent salute. If anyone had that capacity to love, surely it was the woman sitting across from him.

***

“Tell me how things are going.”

On the screen, Dr. Fitzglen sat in his sage green office, a clock ticking softly somewhere in the background and a seascape just behind him. When Copley came through with the recommendation for a therapist, Booker almost changed his mind. But the man was discrete, used to working with high clearance levels, and happy to do telehealth appointments via video conferencing. 

One appointment surely couldn’t hurt. He could tell Gwyn and Copley he’d tried.

One appointment, where he talked about falling into a career in military and security work without meaning to, taking him away from home and family, turned into two.

In the second, he spoke of his wife and children growing to resent changes in him brought on by the work. About how he couldn’t seem to bridge that gap. How the grew distant. Hateful. 

In the third, he spoke of their deaths. Like Gwyn had suggested, he bent the details. An accident all at once, rather than the slow lingering of Jean-Pierre’s cancer and his wife’s aging. The result was essentially the same, lost after estrangement with no way to mend the rupture of the relationship.

In the fourth, he spoke about his grief, his drinking, the crushing nightmares he’d lived with, again bending to truth. No discussion of Quỳnh herself. Just the drowning. His dead family. Pain.

In the fifth, he talked about failing his team. Again, not the specifics. Not “We’re the ones who murdered a shit ton of people at Merrick Pharma because I sold us out to be lab rats.” But that he’d botched his job, and his people had gotten hurt. 

Dr. Fitzglen spent a few of the following sessions making him talk through that. Discussing depression and attention to detail. Intentions and consequences. Amends and restorative justice. Booker had a journal he was doing exercises in.

“They’re going pretty well.”

“Only pretty well?”

He huffed a laugh. For only knowing Booker for two months, Fitzglen had a good read on him. “I miss my team. I woke up this morning, and I’d forgotten for a minute that I’m not supposed to work with them for a while yet. Or talk to them. They became my family. After...well, after. And I just miss them.”

“You understand that they need time to process what happened to them too, right?”

“Yeah.” Booker sighed, running a hand through his hair. “I do. It just threw me off this morning, you know. It hadn’t happened before.”

“Is there something coming up that might have triggered it? An anniversary?”

Booker frowned, then glanced at the calendar on the wall. One Gwyn got him. Famous landscapes. Oh. Oh, next week was… “I didn’t realize. It’s almost the anniversary of when I met them and started working with them.”

“It’s okay to have feelings about that. And it’s okay to miss them, as long as you respect their boundaries. You could try writing them each a letter. Don’t send it, hold it for now. But just putting into words what you’d want to say if you could can be cathartic.”

“Yeah.”

“What else is new?”

Booker bit the inside of his lip. “So, I told you about the friend I’ve been staying with here. And the young kid she’s taken in.”

“Yes. She sounds like a remarkable person.”

“She’s a saint, literally.” Booker paused, running his fingers over the bracelet on his wrist. Ioan had made it for him out of string. “The boy, Ioan. He reminds me of my sons.”

“Is that hard?”

“No. And yes.” Booker blew out a breath. “He’s not them. Not any of them. Doesn’t look like them or act like them. Has different interests. He likes art and animals and wants to be a veterinarian when he grows up. None of my boys were that interested in science.”

“He sounds like a good kid.”

“That’s the hard part. He’s so easy to get attached to.”

“And getting attached is bad?”

“He’s going to die.”

“Is he sick?” the doctor asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

“No.”

“Is he particularly reckless? A daredevil? Prone to cliff jumping or skydiving?”

“No, nothing like that.”

The doctor paused for a long moment. “Sébastien, do you have reason to believe the boy is suicidal?”

“No! Not at all.” Booker’s heart thudded hard in his chest. “I mean, I have no idea about before Gwyn took him in, but she adores him and he knows it. And she’s got him a good counselor. No, nothing like that.”

“So, when you say he’s going to die, you mean indiscriminately at some nebulous point in the future.”

“Yes.” It sounded ridiculous when the man said it like that.

“Are you scared you may come to love this boy and then outlive him?”

“Yes.” Booker didn’t say, I know I will. It’s a certainty. I will bury him one day.

The doctor nodded. “No parent should have to bury their children, and that is doubly hard when you’re estranged from them and never get the chance to make it right. But Sébastien, if you let that build a wall around your heart keeping everyone else out, what’s the point of living? You said early on they didn’t like how hard becoming a soldier made you. Maybe opening your heart up now is a way to honor their memory. By being who they wanted you to be.”

Booker took a shuddering breath. “Maybe.”

“I’m not saying you have to commit to it right now. But you sound like this arrangement with being in Wales makes you happy, and that the boy is now a permanent part of Gwyn’s life. Just be open to the idea that getting attached may not be the worst thing.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Good. Now, let’s go over your dream journaling.”

***

Booker couldn’t remember the last time he’d had anything resembling a proper Christmas. Andy obviously didn’t give a shit for a holiday that wasn’t hers. Joe found the decorations and the carols and the food that came at that time of year interesting in an academic sense, but could also just as easily ignore it.

Nicky...Nicky’s faith was complex. He’d been a priest, he’d told Booker once. Before leaving for crusade. But that so-called holy war stripped much of his faith in organized religion from him, leaving it ash in his mouth. Some years, if he was somewhere with a Catholic presence, he might disappear for a few hours for midnight mass. And sometimes Booker went with him. But often not. 

And there weren’t garlands or great meals, gifts or creches. 

Booker’s own faith was a badly broken cup at best, glued back together because it had been a cherished gift and not because you ever expected it to hold water again. 

But Gwyn’s faith didn’t rest in any church. It lived in her head and in her heart. And it necessitated family Christmas.

“I have no idea what Ioan’s had.” she told Booker on a day when the boy was at school, and they were in an electronics shop, pondering different gaming systems. “But it’s his first Christmas with us, and I want it to be good.”

“And with Manvir and Bargitta. And James Copley.”

“I told them they were like honorary aunts and uncles. It’s fine.”

“Have you heard from the team at all?”

Gwyn sighed. “They’re doing a long, slow crawl through Asia. Places Quỳnh knew well centuries ago. Checking old caches for any sign of her. We won’t see them for a while.”

You won’t, Booker thought, but kept it to himself. “Why not both game systems?”

“That’s not too much?”

“It is Christmas.”

“Done.”

Manvir and Bargitta flew in the 21st, and James Copley came down the same day. They spent that evening relaxing and letting the Arjwals get over their jet lag, playing board games and decorating the tree Booker and Ioan had gone and gotten that morning.

On the early morning of the 22nd, they all went into Swansea to the holiday market, enjoying the music and the treats, the shopping and the lights. Ioan laughed easily, happy with the addition of more honorary family and the promise of all the hot cocoa he could drink.

Booker enjoyed catching up with both Manvir and Bargitta, while Gwyn walked and chatted with James. By the time they piled into the Rover to go home, Ioan passed out in the back on Bargitta’s shoulder and Copley snored in the third row seat.

The 23rd, he and James took Ioan shopping so he could get presents, while Manvir and Bargitta got to spend time with Gwyn. 

“He’s a good lad,” Copley said, watching as Ioan considered a few different sweaters for Gwyn. “He’s kind and polite and has just the right kind of mischief. If I didn’t think Gwyn would kill me, I’d consider suggesting he become my apprentice.”

“I’d kill you first.”

Copley laughed. “The two of you are doing a wonderful thing.”

“He’s Gwyn’s,” Booker argued, but looked fondly at Ioan as he carefully refolded the two sweaters he didn’t choose. “I’m just the fun uncle.”

Copley clapped him gently on the back. “Sure, Sébastien. Keep telling yourself that.”

On the 24th, Gwyn spent most of her day in the kitchen, the small speakers playing carols as she cooked. Everyone else relaxed and wrapped presents. Ioan cycled the TV in the great room through one holiday film after another, including to Booker’s amusement, Die Hard.

After dinner, presents were opened. Ioan’s pile was the largest, full of books from Bargitta and clothes, a few American sporting jerseys from Boston with his name on the back from Manvir with the promise to take him to a game when he and Gwyn came to visit, the game systems from Gwyn and an assortment of games from Booker, and a new, very high end laptop from James. 

After everything was cleared up, Gwyn put on her new sweater and skirt and styled her hair under a hat. Ioan had begged off church, and she hadn’t pushed. Bargitta and Manvir had likewise opted to stay in, reading before going to bed. James had surprised her, asking to tag along. Her namesake church was doing a midnight service, and it had been a long time.

Booker surprised himself, putting on the nice shirt that Ioan got him and clean khakis, and the new rich black wool pea coat from Gwyn, and silently followed them to the car.

It felt like a thousand candles lit the old church as they walked in, taking a pew toward the back and settling in. In the years gone by, the church had converted from the Catholic rite to the Anglican one, but it was close enough that Booker could follow along. The service was in Welsh, of all things, but he found that watching Gwyn mouth along made his confusion worth it.

The music though, that was in English. At least some of it. Interspersed with the more traditional hymns, the choir began an acapella rendition of Silent Night.

Booker tensed. In a moment, he was back in time, back in a trench, listening and men who would be dead in mere days sang to each other across a no man’s land.

“Holy night,” came a sweet alto next to him, cutting into the memory as a hand grabbed his, squeezing tight. “All is calm. All is bright.”

James joined in on his other side, and suddenly had his other hand. “Round yon Virgin Mother and Child. Holy infant, so tender and mild.”

Booker found his own voice, and came in, even if he wobbled, “Sleep in heavenly peace. Sleep in heavenly peace.”

***

It was bound to happen eventually. But Booker hadn’t anticipated that it would happen anywhere near this quickly.

On a Saturday morning, a little before eleven, he sat in his front room slash studio working on a piece from memory when the pounding on his door nearly made him put his palette knife through his canvas.

“Merde,” he muttered, getting up and hurrying to open it. “Wha…”

Ioan stood on his stoop, hyperventilating, his hands and shirt covered in blood. 

“Ioan?” he said. “What happened? Are you hurt?”

“She’s dead. She’s dead, oh God. We have to call someone.”

Booker froze. Merde. Merde, merde, merde. “Ioan, where is Gwyn?”

“The paddock. It was an accident. There’s so much blood, and she’s...her head… We have to call.”

“We call no one.” He made his voice as hard as he could, grabbing Ioan’s face and forcing him to look at him. “Do you understand, Ioan? You don’t call anyone yet. No one. Get towels out of my bathroom and lay them out on my couch.”

Ioan blinked at him. “Why?”

“Because right now, I am the adult and I am telling you to. If I say we need to call someone, we will. But not yet. Now get the towels. Then put my kettle on and make yourself a strong tea. Wait at the table for me.”

He left Ioan in the cottage and ran.

In the paddock, the unbroken Welsh pony Gwyn had acquired a month before and started breaking stood off to one end, stamping his front hooves and frothing a little at the mouth. And in the middle of the paddock on the ground lay a crumpled body.

“Fuck, Gwyn,” he muttered. Climbing the fence, he started with the pony, edging toward him slowly until he could get close enough to get the reins and secure him to the fence. Once he was sure the animal wasn’t going to come back and go a second round, he made his way to his friend.

The hooves had made nasty work of her, trampling her chest and right arm. But worst of all, the likely source of the blood that stained Ioan’s hands, was her head. Part of her skull remained partially caved in.

“Big injuries take longer,” he muttered, shrugging out of his over shirt and using it to wipe away blood and gore from her face and her shattered arm. Then he leaned in close. “Come on, Gwyn. Don’t do this to the kid. Or me.”

It took a minute, but then he saw the wriggling of her body, like so many worms in the flesh, starting to push around caved in bones and brain matter.

“Thank you.”

He lifted her up, carrying her limp and still mostly lifeless corpse out of the paddock and back to the cottage.

When he came through the door, he found Ioan had followed orders, laying out every towel he owned on the couch. The boy perched on a kitchen chair, shaking hard. He went pale as whitewash when Booker laid Gwyn’s body down. 

“She’s dead,” he whispered.

“Ioan, I need you to come here,” Booker said, keeping his voice calm and even. “It’s going to be okay. I need you to trust me.”

“But…”

“Si vous plait.”

The French got to him and slowly, Ioan crept forward, taking Booker’s hand.

“I know she looks terrible. And dead. Right now, she is. But look closely here.” Booker pointed with his free hand to where a portion of Gwyn’s face began to knit itself back together. The boy next to him drew in a sharp breath. “Her body is repairing itself. It’s taking time, because she was badly hurt. What happened?”

“A...A dog.” Ioan gulped, his hand shaking in Booker’s. “I’ve never seen it before. I was working with Gwynned when it came out of nowhere snapping at his hooves. Gwynned spooked and started to rear. Gwyn grabbed me and threw me out of the way.”

“She’s like that. She’ll always make that sacrifice if she can.” He squeezed the boy’s hand. “Look, see how much better her arm looks.”

“How? How is she doing that?”

Booker took a deep breath. “Gwyn is special. One of a small group of special people. People who, when they die a first death, usually by violence, heal from it. They can be hurt, but they’re bodies heal.” He paused, watching as Ioan’s eyes went wide. “Sometimes they even die, but they come back from it, like she is now.”

“They’re immortal?”

“For a time. One day, the power ends. And then they pass on like everyone else.”

Ioan blinked at him. Then his mouth dropped open. “You. You’re like her, aren’t you?”

Booker slowly nodded. “Yes.”

Ioan squinted at him closely. “Older or younger than her?”

Good. The questions were keeping the kid distracted. Gwyn’s head made a weird squishing sound as her brain rearranged itself and Booker would rather the kid missed this part. “That depends. She was younger than me when she died her first death. Only a few years older than you. I was forty two. But she’s been one of us much longer than me.”

“How much longer?”

“It’s not polite to ask people their age.”

Ioan frowned at him.

Booker laughed. “I’m almost 246 years old.”

“Merde,” Ioan whispered.

“Well, she did say I could teach you to cuss at home.”

Ioan’s eyes widened. “Will it happen to me? Is that why Gwyn took me in?”

Booker’s heart sank. “Probably not. We have no way to know when another of us will be called.” He grimaced, remembering the circumstances that called the last of them. “It’s rare, and it’s not something we can give, or share. Believe me. We would if we could. No, she took you in because you needed people to love you. And she’s had long practice being that.”

“Oh.”

Beside them, Gwyn gave a rattling gasp, followed by an agonized, “Motherfucker.”

Ioan’s mouth dropped open.

“Just because we heal doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt,” Booker explained. “Welcome back, Gwyn.”

She groped out with a hand. “Ioan. Is Ioan okay?”

“He’s right here.”

“Oh. Oh, shit.”

“Hi.” Ioan’s voice was small as he took her hand. “I’m sorry, Gwyn.”

“Oh, darling boy, no. That was not your fault. Fecking dog.”

“I’ve got Ioan for now Gwyn. Can you not see?”

“I think my occipital lobe is still straightening itself out. It feels like a burning railroad spike through my eye.”

“Rest. We’ll go put Gwynned back in his stall for you and brush him down, and then start lunch.”

“Thank you.” She paused. “Ioan?”

“Gwyn?”

“I love you, sweetheart. I’m going to be fine by tonight. Okay?”

“I love you too.”

“Okay.” With that Gwyn relaxed into his couch and passed out.

“Healing’s a bitch,” Booker offered. Then he grew serious. “Ioan, this has to be a secret between the three of us. If people found out, they’d want to hurt Gwyn and I. Treat us like lab rats to try to find out why we are this way. People have tried before. And they’ll hurt whoever they have to in order to get to us.”

Ioan stopped walking and looked solemnly at him for a long minute. Then he shrugged. “What has to be a secret, Sébastien?”

Booker released the breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“Good lad.”

***

The stars are bright above the croft. Bright and mostly clear, even with the light pollution from Fishguard and Pemrboke and distant Swansea. It’s almost beautiful enough to make him forget the rock digging into his ass.

“We need chairs.”

“Getting old, Sébastien?”

“Fuck you, you crone.”

Gwyn cackled with laughter. It was just the two of them tonight. Ioan’s friend from school, Michael, had asked if he could come with him for his birthday weekend up to Cardiff to go to a concert. After Gwyn carefully vetted the parents involved and made sure there would be chaperones, she’d let him.

So tonight, the two of them sat on blankets on the hill above the paddock, a portable fire bowl in front of them crackling merrily, and the fixings for something Gwyn called a smore laid out, along with hard ciders. 

Booker felt loose. Good. Ioan had taken the discovery of who and what they were better than he could have hoped, especially once Gwyn was back up and on her feet, cursing loose dogs and trying to get blood out of towels. He’d merely hugged her longer for a few days before getting on with being a kid.

And if it broke the last of the wall holding Booker back from getting attached, afraid to love another child who’d grow to hate him. Well. He owed Gwyn one for the two day headache. 

He’d texted Nile about it. She’d sent him back a covert picture of Andy, followed by five different gifs of kitten litters. Sometimes he wondered if she could communicate in anything that wasn’t a meme.

“I’ve been meaning to ask, how’s therapy going?”

Booker grabbed his cider, taking a long drink off of it. It was still his first, and the flavor definitely wasn’t improved by growing warm. “Good. Dr. Fitzglen has a talent for making me think.”

“The best therapists do.”

“Have you been talking to someone?”

“Mmhmm.” Gwyn snagged a piece of chocolate from the smore supplies, popping it in her mouth. “I’d told my therapist in Seattle I was going back to Wales when I left, to take care of a sick relative. She’d offered to keep seeing me for distance sessions as I needed them.”

“So I’m your sick relative?” he asked, only the mildest bit offended.

“No. I honestly half expected you to tell me to go fuck myself when I showed up in Paris all those months ago.” Gwyn shrugged. “Remember, I’ve seen you in my dreams for a long time, Sébastien. I thought you’d hate the idea of another seemingly ancient immortal barging into your life.”

Booker sat with that for a long moment, considering. “If Quỳnh hadn’t been there, you’re probably right.” He paused, glancing up at the night sky. “So, what then?”

“I probably would have come here anyway. Made it a way stop for the others. Stayed until I got bored or restless, then found a new cause.” She laughed, but it still sounded tired. “World never runs out of those.”

“Or battles.”

“Do you want that?” Gwyn looked at him, her eyes keen and searching. “Battle, I mean.”

“It’s what we do.”

“It’s what they do. Andromache. Quỳnh did. And I suppose Yusuf and Nicolo by long habit. And now Nile.” Gwyn shrugged. “They assumed I couldn’t.”

“Could you have?”

“Our people birthed Boudicca. I was raised knowing enough to defend myself. I’ve learned more over the years. Could I take one of you? Maybe not.” She took a sip of her own drink. “Have I fought mortals and won? If I had to. Battle is a choice. It’s almost never been mine.”

“Almost never?” Booker repeated, perplexed. 

“Allow a woman some secrets.”

“Even from Copley? And your binder of knowing?”

“If Copley can find these secrets, he can have them.”

“Huh.” Booker tipped back the rest of his cider. “Would you spar with me if I asked?”

“Would you ever tell the others?”

“Not if you asked me not to.”

“Then maybe.” Gwyn reached for more chocolate. “But my point was, Sébastien, just because the others choose battle doesn’t mean you have to. You could get a medical degree. You could work with NGOs. You could learn sustainable agriculture or do art therapy with refugee children. There are a thousand ways to help people. Not all of them require gun fights.”

They slipped back into companionable silence for a while. A long while. Booker listened to the night sound of Gwynedd down in his barn and up in the hills above them, the wildlife in the copses of trees. To the still, almost perceptible sound of Gwyn’s breathing as she watched the flames dance in the fire.

The confessions slipped from him before he thought about it. “It was just supposed to be me.”

“What was?” Gwyn glanced at him, her attention suddenly undivided and all his, and Booker wished he could take the words back. But he’d only been able to tell this tale partially to Dr. Fitzglen. He needed to lance the boil once and for all.

“Merrick. Copley. When he reached out to me, he knew what we were. I don’t know what triggered it for him with the job we’d done before. It was clean. I made sure of it. I wasn’t sloppy back then.” He’d gone over it a thousand times in his head since that day on the Thames. The first step that led to everything had been that original job. “When he contacted me, he knew basically what we were. And he knew the most about me. He’d found me. Sébastien le Livre.”

Gwyn stayed silent, her eyes on him. But there wasn’t disgust in her face. No judgment. Just curiosity. Understanding. Booker pressed on.

“He knew about my son. About Jean-Pierre and how he died. And he told me about his wife. His Cecile. All the agonizing details of what her disease did to her. She was a musician, before. A singer and a cellist. It took everything from her.” His voice broke. 

Gwyn’s hand reached across, resting on his arm.

“Even with all his research, his wall, what we did still seemed like a drop in the bucket, you know? Sure, sometimes we save someone, and they make some groundbreaking discovery. And sometimes we save people and the next war just kills them.” Booker swiped at his eyes. “What Copley suggested, working with Merrick, giving them...samples. If they could use what we are to cure disease, to save humanity. If no one else had to die like my son or his wife. That would be enough, you know?”

“Oh, Sébastien.”

“I know. I know that sounds naive.”

“It doesn’t. It sounds like good intentions.”

“Right onto the road to perdition.”

“What happened?”

“Copley went to Merrick. They were this juggernaut. Leaps and bounds ahead of everyone. And he told them about me. Said I could heal from anything and I was willing to give them whatever they wanted. And they tried to laugh him out the door. Said one immortal was a statistical impossibility.”

Gwyn grimaced. “He spilled about the others?”

“He said there were more and we could prove it. Maybe get them samples from the others and then give them me.” Booker closed his eyes, dropping his head. “I should have pulled the plug when he came back then. I should have...I should have cleaned up the problem and walked away, but....”

“But it wasn’t just about saving people.”

“No.”

“It was about a way out.”

“I’d spent two hundred and eight years with Quỳnh screaming inside my head when I went to sleep. And if not her, my son’s fury or my wife’s bitterness and contempt.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, the palms of his eyes pressed hard against his hands. “I was so tired, and I could see that Andromache was exhausted. She kept going, one foot in front of the other, but….”

He stopped. “It was supposed to be samples, then. Do the botched job, they’d take samples from the kill room. And then I’d break away and go in and that would be that.”

“Merrick changed the play.” It isn’t a question. Gwyn saw it. Must have seen it when she dreamed. His memories or Niles.

“I kept telling myself it was for the greater good, that they’d get their samples and then Joe and Nicky could just…”

“Sébastien.”

“I know. I know I was lying to myself. But I didn’t know if it was the number of deaths or the number of years and I just wanted it to be over. I needed it to be. More than anything, I needed the pain to stop. So it was keep accepting the changes in plan or pull the plug and lose the only hope of peace I could see. And I destroyed my family all over again.”

“They’re not destroyed.”

“I won’t see Andy again.”

“You have once. You might again.”

“It hasn’t even been a year yet. And she’s...any mission, she could.”

“That’s always been the truth. She could have died on the killing room floor in Sudan.” Booker flinched at the calm in Gwyn’s tone. “Or in San Paulo in ‘34. The greatest thing we have in common with humanity to this day, Sébastien, is that one day, you and I will both die. And we can’t say when or how.”

He gave a choked laugh. “How are you this capable of...going on after so many years?”

“I drowned myself repeatedly for years.”

Booker turned his head so fast, his neck protested with an ache before healing it away. “What?”

“It was penance for a lot of things. Deaths on my hands from Paris. Quỳnh. Not being able to help Andromache enough.” She shrugged. “I never did it with the hope that it would be final. But the possibility that it could never stopped me.”

“Merde.”

“I’ve never wanted death the way you have, Sébastien. But I also know that the man I met when I woke up in the cargo container all those months ago isn’t the man I see here anymore.” She picked up the ciders and the snacks, dumping them to the other side of her. Then she scooted over, wrapping a hug around him. “If Bargitta called me tomorrow and said she’d used my blood and DNA and found a way to end things, would you take it?”

Booker sucked in a breath. Less than a year ago, the answer would have been yes. A hundred times yes. A thousand times. He’d have taken it and asked to be laid to rest near his family. He’d have gone home.

But where was home? What was home? What was family? He loved his wife and sons, and he always would. But he loved Joe and Nicky. He loved watching football with Joe, swearing at bad calls and picking random teams to cheer for. He loved stupid baklava bets with Nicky, even if he won every time. And Andy. Fuck, he loved Andy like a sister and a mother and a Goddess. 

He barely knew Nile, but he couldn’t imagine missing out on her hitting her stride, finding her way. Becoming the warrior and the leader and the sister she was meant to be.

And Ioan. His bright eyes and happy smile. How much he’d bloomed in the few month’s he’d been at the croft. His plans with Gwyn to go to Pride and to tour universities. His slowly improving French over dessert every night.

And Gwyn. Gwyn, who pushed him and hugged him, opened her home to him. Who trusted him with her own heart and the heart of the child she loved. Who didn’t spare his feelings in the quest to unbreak his heart. The sister of his soul. 

Could he walk away from all of it tomorrow? He could. But he didn’t want to.

“No.”

“Okay then.” Gwyn held on tight to him. “I can’t give you absolution, Sébastien. But the past is the past. Make your sincere apologies when you can. But otherwise, it’s time to let it go.”

***

“Mum.”

Booker looked at Gwyn from his seat the the kitchen table. Ioan called her Gwyn, not Mum. 

Gwyn’s face lost all expression as she moved slowly over to the potato bin he’d not once seen her use. Her left hand drew the door of it open as Ioan appeared in the doorway, his eyes wide and slightly wild behind his glasses. “Yes, sweetheart?”

“There’s a woman in the living room. Says she’s an old friend of yours from Uni. That she was Andrea’s roommate.”

“Oh, what a pleasant surprise.” Gwyn motioned Ioan toward her. “Can you go up to my room? I have that little green statue on my nightstand. I want you to fetch it for me, there’s a love.”

Ioan slid past her and up the stairs. 

Booker slid a hand around his waistband to the HK at the center of his back. But before he could move, Gwyn pulled a Maxim 9 out of the potato bin and dropped that hand behind her back. She stepped through the door before he could stop her.

“Hello, Gwynog.”

Booker rose, rushing to dive through the door. 

“Hello, Quỳnh.”

A body hit the floor.

Booker made it into the room in time to see Gwyn put two additional shots into Quỳnh’s heart. The head wound was already healing. Without looking at him, she said calmly, “There are zip ties in the third drawer down on the banquet there. Help me tie her up.”

“Holy shit. Has that gun been there the whole time?” He didn’t wait for her to answer before getting what she asked for. 

“Only since James came to visit. He brought me a few things as a favor.”

In minutes, they had Quỳnh zip tied hand and foot to one of the sturdy kitchen chairs and searched for weapons. All her knives and her two guns were shoved into a canvas bag and dumped in the same empty potato bin in the kitchen before their captive took her first rattling breath.

“Gwyn?” Ioan called, poking his head out of the kitchen. “Is this what you asked for?”

He held out a small jade figure. Gwyn nodded, taking it. 

“Thank you.”

“Is she one of you?”

“Yes, love.” Gwyn hugged him, careful to make sure she didn’t transfer blood onto him. “She is.”

“You shot her.”

“We’re having a sort of family dispute.” 

Ioan laughed a little hysterically. “Is that going to happen a lot?”

“Not if I can help it. Can you take your laptop out to Sébastien’s cottage and work on homework? I’ll let you know when it’s safe to come back up to the house.”

He nodded, disappearing back into the kitchen. A few minutes later, as Quỳnh finished rousing herself, the back door slammed shut.

“You shot me.” Quỳnh’s tone lacked anger, bordering on amusement instead.

“You snapped my neck, shoved me in a box, and threw me in the ocean.” Gwyn kept her gun in hand, zip ties be damned apparently. Booker watched her, expecting less expert handling and then recalling their conversation up in the hills. “I’d say we’re even.”

Quỳnh coughed, hacking up a bullet. “Are we? You claimed to have put me in one first.”

“I lied.”

“Oh, now you claim to have lied. Why would you lie then, when it meant your burial at sea?”

“Because it made you choose me and leave Nicolo alone.” Gwyn sighed, looking at the woman in front of her. “The pedophile priests were a nice touch, after. Tell me, had you chosen Nicolo as your sacrifice because he had been a priest once? Or because he and Yusuf love as you and Andromache once did, and you wanted to make it hurt?”

“You always were perceptive.” Quỳnh yanked against her bonds, then glanced at Booker questioningly. “Is that why you sold me out? Had them cast me into a sea of agony and torment?”

“I was at the court of Ivan’s regent in Russia, Quỳnh. I had a vision of your capture, and I rode like hell to get to you. I’m sorry it wasn’t enough. I never sold you out.” She reached over, handing Booker her gun and picking up the little piece of green jade. “I’m sorry that we couldn’t find you. We tried.”

“You abandoned me. All of you.”

“We followed every lead we had. We killed ourselves over and over, dredging and diving. I can’t count the number of times we nearly lost one of us overboard without a safety line.” She stepped a foot closer, though still out of reach. “Over a century when we stopped, Quỳnh. Every sailor on that ship ran to ground, every descendant, every family story. I prayed constantly for a miracle that never came until my faith was in shreds. We did everything we knew to do.”

“You still stopped.”

“You would have too.”

“If it was Andromache, I would have looked until death took me.”

“Would you?” Another step closer. “You spent thousands of years at her side. If you had saved her, but lost Nico and Yusuf in the process, would she have forgiven you for it?”

Quỳnh shrieked at her. “You all still left me!"

“I know. And I am sorry.” Another step. “If I had been there, if it had been the three of us? I’d have taken the Maiden for you, sister. The same as I took your box for Nicolo. I’d have borne it so you didn’t have to. And if I had realized you hadn’t died down there, I’d have started looking again as soon as the technology improved. I’m not sure if the others understood it as I did. I was gone so long from them. But I didn’t know. Not until mere days before you found us.”

Booker expected rage from Quỳnh. Screaming. Not...tears.

“You all forgot me.”

“Never. We never forgot.” She stepped closer again. “Your loss destroyed Andromache. She’s never been the same. She’s mourning you. Yusuf and Nicolo can barely stand to be parted, terrified they’d end up as you did. Broken they couldn’t save you. Sébastien dreamed of you for years. Nile for months. And I have prayed every day for you, even when I thought you died.”

“Every day?”

“Morning and Night.” Holding out her hand, Gwyn showed Quỳnh the thing she clutched in it. “I have carried very few things with me on my travels. But this has hardly left my side since the day you gave it to me and called me sister. I never forgot you, Quỳnh.”

The woman in the chair sobbed harder and Gwyn went to her, wrapping her in the most awkward possible hug. When her tears finally abated, Gwyn leaned back.

“What happens now?” Quỳnh asked.

“That depends on you.”

“I’m still so...angry. I don’t know how to stop being angry.”

Gwyn nodded. “You are allowed to be angry. And scared. And overwhelmed. But you aren’t allowed to hurt people again. Not me. Not Sébastien. Not the others. Your feelings aren’t an excuse for your actions.”

Booker snorted quietly. Gwyn shot him an annoyed look over her shoulder. “Sorry,” he muttered. “You sound like Fitzglen.”

Gwyn turned back to Quỳnh. “Do you understand?”

“You have a son.”

Gwyn drew in a sharp breath. “Yes. I do.”

“Not of your blood. We can’t.”

“No. But he is mine in every way that truly matters.” Gwyn’s voice went deadly cold. “Quỳnh, I love you. You are my sister, and I have missed you. I forgive you for what you did to me. But if you try to harm my child, I will put you back in the ocean myself, and you will never get out. Do you understand me?”

Quỳnh’s eyes went wide. “I would never.”

“Okay.” Gwyn’s shoulders dropped. “And the others?”

“Not them, either. I’m tired, Gwynog. I want to rest.”

“Do you want to see them?”

“Will they...do you think they’ll forgive me?”

“Good luck with Joe,” Booker added.

Gwyn growled. “Not. Helping.”

“Sorry.”

“I think if you apologize.” She stopped and turned, pinning Booker in place. “Sincerely and truly apologize for what you put them through, then yes. In time.”

She turned back to Quỳnh.

“I miss them.”

“I know.” Gwyn glanced at Booker. “Can you hand me something to cut her loose with?”

“Are you sure?” he asked. Admittedly, Quỳnh looked tired and defeated, slumped in the chair. “Remember Paris.”

“That’s why you have a gun.”

In minutes, Quỳnh was free, sitting at the kitchen table with green tea and a sandwich while Booker kept an eye on her and Gwyn stood out in the yard, calling Copley to start a relay message.

“You do not trust me,” Quỳnh said.

Booker chuckled. “We didn’t have a great introduction.”

“I’m sorry. I hope we have time become better acquainted.”

“Me too.” And he found he meant it. If Gwyn could forgive, he could try. Even if he was no saint.


	5. That's What The Water Gave Us

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The gang is all here, hard discussions are had, apologies are given and received, and tentative next plans made. Everyone is okay in the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small TW: In his apology, Booker mentions a therapy diagnosis relating to suicidal ideation.

“There’s a car coming up the drive,” Ioan called.

Booker tried not to vomit. When Gwyn told him the others were flying to Wales and would be here in days, his first impulse had been to pack up and head for Paris. At least until they’d gone. Or maybe drive up to Surrey and see Copley. Or maybe just the Azores or something. Anywhere but here.

Gwyn had put her foot down. “This is my home. I get to say who is welcome in my home. If they want to enforce the exile in places which are not my home, so be it, but my rules start at the property line.”

“Joe won’t like it.”

“I can deal with Yusuf. Besides, I am not handling the Quỳnh reunion with no one but my seventeen year old child for backup.”

“Copley’s coming too.”

“Sébastien.”

Booker stopped arguing. 

And now, here he was, sitting on one of the couches in the living room in a paint splattered shirt, keeping Quỳnh from climbing the walls. Or climbing them himself.

“Are you two okay?” Ioan asked, poking his head in.

“Fine,” Booker managed.

Quỳnh just pressed her lips into a grim line.

Ioan looked between them. Then he slowly stepped into the room, walking up to Booker first. “May I hug you, Uncle Sébastien?”

Booker blinked, then nodded. The boy wrapped his arms tightly around him, holding on for a long minute as Booker returned the hug. 

Then he let go and walked over to Quỳnh, “May I hug you, Aunt Quỳnh?”

Quỳnh shot Booker a vaguely panicked look. He shrugged back, so she looked at Ioan and nodded. Gently, and with less force, the boy stepped in and hugged her. Quỳnh remained stiff for a few seconds before tentatively hugging him back.

When he stepped away, he looked between them. “Sometimes family is hard. Mine’s been broken before. But now I’ve got Gwyn, and she’s brought me you. It’s small, but it’s pretty good. So whatever happens, it’s going to be okay.”

Then he disappeared, into the hall and deeper into the house.

“Huh.” Quỳnh blinked.

“He’s a wise kid.”

“Dammit!” Gwyn’s voice rang out through the house. Booker shot up, reaching for a gun that he’d actually left off and tucked under his mattress this morning. Either Quỳnh was playing an impeccable long game, or she really meant them no harm.

“You okay?”

“Broke my fecking toe on the banquet on the way by.” Gwyn hopped into view. “It’ll be fine in a minute.”

“Where’s Ioan?”

“Getting me shoes. So I won’t do it again.”

“Smart kid.”

“Hush.”

The knocking cut off conversation. Gwyn limped to the door, pulling it open to four immortals and one mortal and tired looking handler. 

“Welcome. Come in. How was the drive?”

She limped backwards, and Nicky zeroed in on the movement.

“How recent is…”

“Less than two minutes, I can feel the bones aligning, it’s fine.”

“The drive was scenic,” Nile offered, slipping inside. “Wales is pretty. You’re taking me to see this bullshit stained glass, later, right?”

“As soon as my toe can fit in a shoe, sure.”

“Gwyn,” Copley offered.

“James. How’s the binder?”

“You’re my favorite.”

“Of course I am. I'm delightful.” She turned to the other three. “Are you coming or letting in bugs?”

The walked in and then stopped, staring into the great room.

“You weren’t bullshitting us,” Joe breathed.

“About what?” Gwyn asked, looking at him. 

“Quỳnh .”

“What?”

“He thought,” Nile offered, “that you were interceding on Booker’s behalf.”

“Oh, for fuck sake.” Gwyn staggered into the living room, flopping on the nearest soft surface. “No. I would not lie to you about Quỳnh being in my home to get you to come see Sébastien, Yusuf. I would have simply pointed out that I saved the love of your immortal life from being shoved in a metal coffin and tossed in the fucking sea, and that you owed me.”

Joe cringed. “I’m sorry, Gwyn. It was an uncharitable thought.”

“Apology accepted.”

“Gwyn?”

Everyone turned to find Ioan standing there. He held out a pair of slip on mules. “I figured these were best until your toe resets.”

“Thanks, my love. Do you want to be a help and go get the tray of glasses. I’ll be right there to get the pitcher.”

He nodded and disappeared back into the house.

“That,” Andy said, “is a child.”

“Ten points to Scythia.”

Booker snorted.

“A child who clearly knows about us.”

“Yes, he does.” Gwyn met Andy’s gaze levelly. “There was a farm accident and he saw me die.”

“Then you disappear.”

“Nope.”

“Excuse me?” Andy’s voice raised a notch.

“I took Ioan because his family threw him away. I won’t have him go back into a cruel system because a horse freaked out and kicked me in the skull.”

“You used to be a better equestrian then that.” Quỳnh ’s voice cut through conversation for the first time and the others froze.

“Eh, Ioan was working with him, a stray dog ran into the paddock, horse reared, and it was me or the kid.”

“Ah. That makes more sense.” Quỳnh smiled. “Must have hurt though.”

“Head, arm, and flail chest. Nearly ruined all of Sébastien’s towels.”

“Are we in a farce?” Joe asked softly, looking at Nicky.

“You are not,” Gwyn answered, sliding a shoe on each foot and then standing and biting back a hiss. “I’m going to help my kid with the lemonade. Quỳnh, why don’t you say what you wanted to say.”

Gwyn limped out of the room, leaving Booker and Quỳnh alone with the others.

Quỳnh took a deep breath. “When I finally got out, I was...furious. I believed you had abandoned me to my fate. Forgotten me. Left me to die there.”

“Quỳnh,” Andy breathed, but Quỳnh held up a hand.

“I wanted to make it hurt. I chose Nico because he had once been a priest like those who took me, and because I wanted him and Yusuf to suffer as I did in losing my love.” Her eyes slowly filled with tears. “I was wrong. I only knew what I could see in my shared dreams. I thought you all went on and were happy without me.”

The three eldest immortals still in the room other than Quỳnh looked solemnly at each other. “We went on with our lives,” Nicky finally said. “But we always ached for your absence.”

“I know that now. Gwynog told me of the search and how hard you looked. How you all carried my loss in your souls. Like Lykon, but worse.” She sniffled. “After I did what I did to her, after I killed those vile false prophets, I expected to feel better. I only felt empty. And I realized it was a mistake and I went to try to find the box. But it was gone. So I tracked Gwynog home. And for all I wronged her in my revenge, she forgave me.”

“Of course she did,” murmured Nile, her frown firmly in place. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for taking you all, and for putting you through what I did. For taking Gwynog from you for as long as I did.” Quỳnh’s eyes met Gwyn’s where she stood at the door, a pitcher of lemonade in her hand and Ioan at her shoulder with the glasses. “My feelings were valid, but they didn’t excuse my actions. I’ll understand if you cannot forgive my transgression, but know I’ll spend whatever time I have remaining making it up to all of you.”

Joe and Nicky looked at each other for a long moment, then gave Quỳnh a nod each. Nile remained where she was by the fireplace, watching her warily. And Andy. Andy took a shaky step forward, stopping in front of Quỳnh. She spoke words in a language Booker didn’t recognize.

Quỳnh rose to her feet. And then she was in Andy’s arms, held tight in an embrace so intimate, it hurt to watch.

“Right, how about the rest of you follow me through to the dining room for this lemonade,” Gwyn called, turning and leading the way.

***

Hours later, after reunions and quiet discussions with Nile, after cooking an army’s worth of food with Nicky and Joe helping her and Ioan, after dinner and a massive round robin of French language half hour over dessert which got confusing since Quỳnh ’s understanding was a mix of a five hundred year old dialect and what she’d gleaned from Booker’s dreams, and after bed assignments had been handed out, Nile had gone up to have some down time in the master she’d share with Gwyn, and Ioan and Copley had both wandered off to bed, Gwyn sat facing the older of her younger brothers.

“I don’t like the look on your face,” Joe said, swirling water in his glass. 

“That’s fair. You aren’t going to like what I’m about to ask.”

“Gwyn. Mia sorella.” Nicky looked at her, the hard edge of quiet anger she’d seen in his eyes in Seattle still there. “Don’t ask this.”

“Ask what? What do you think I am asking?”

“To end the exile.”

Gwyn burst out laughing. And kept laughing. Laughing so hard, she almost started to cry. By the time she got her breathing under control, Nicky and Joe were looking at her like she was bound for Bedlam. “Fuck, no. That would be the worst possible thing. Please don’t do that.”

“You...want us to keep him exiled?”

“It’s complicated.” She sat there, waiting until the impulse to hysteria fully passed, then rose and dug around in the cabinet where she kept the small amount of liquor she had in the house. Pouring herself two fingers of excellent whiskey, she came back to the table. “Quỳnh broke us. Andromache. Me. You two.”

Joe made a noise, a sound of protest, but Gwyn shook her head. 

“Please, let me say this. I knew you both for nearly five hundred years before we lost her. I knew she and Andromache for a thousand. And yes, we knew any of us could die if our time came. We remembered Lykon.” She let his name hang there, the brother none of them had ever met, but would always remember. “But we didn’t fathom losing each other like that. We loved so freely before that, the five of us. We spoke it into the world. And then we didn’t.”

“Yusuf does,” Nicky said, his voice rough. “His love is poetry.”

“Yes, for you. And that’s good. What is between you two makes my heart sing. It always has. But Yusuf, after, in the two centuries I stayed, I can count the number of times you spoke of your love for me on two hands.”

“You are saying it is our fault, what he did?” Joe stood up. “That our love drove him to it?”

“No. I know he said that at the time, but I don’t think that. Neither does he. But I do think that Andromache dove so deep into herself it was easier to swim down. I think you two retreated into each other. And I thought that walking away would spare her pain. So I wasn’t here to help any of you.”

“Has he convinced you this is somehow your fault, Gwyn? Mia sorella, you cannot be the world’s martyr.”

“I’m not. But I can wonder if choices had been different, would it have changed things. Maybe. Or maybe not. What I do know is that if Sébastien le Livre had been mortal, he’d have killed himself long ago.” She paused, looking each of them in the eye. “It’s like having a demon inside your head, scratching its claws down your skull and whispering at you to kill yourself, over and over. Dreaming of Quỳnh surely didn’t help. Fighting war after war may not have been great either.”

Some of the anger drained from Joe and Nicky. “What are you asking then, Gwyn?” Joe asked.

“I’m asking that you talk to him while you’re here. Once and alone, just the two of you. He’s made a lot of progress. I think he has an apology he wants to make. It would help him to say it, and I think it would help you to hear it. And then you can walk away and take as much time as you need to heal from what happened. And if I can help with that in any way, I will.”

Nicky sighed. “That is not so great an ask.”

“Also, please don’t kill him while you’re at it. Unless you’re outside. Cleaning up blood off hardwood floors is exhausting.”

Joe laughed.

***

Booker ended up back at his little cottage as soon as he could escape dessert with his now usual nightcap of seltzer water with a splash of lime.

When the knock came, he opened it, expecting Gwyn.

Nicky and Joe stood there.

“Oh. Hello.”

The two of them didn’t say anything for a moment. Then finally, Joe sighed. “Gwyn said you had something you wanted to say.”

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

“I mean, I do. Not that. Sorry, I didn’t expect…”

“Us either.” Nicky smiled at him, but it was a smile that held a lot of raw pain. A smile Booker had seen more than once right before Nicky killed a man for daring to harm Joe.

He swallowed. “Do you want to come in?”

The followed him, sitting down on his small couch. The one Gwyn had bled all over his towels on a few months ago. Booker took a seat at his dinette table.

“I didn’t expect to have this chance for many years. I’m sorry this will be rough.” 

Joe crossed his arms, scowling at him.

Booker took a deep breath. “When I made the choices I did, I wanted to die. Very badly. So badly, I couldn’t think of anything else. Just making the pain stop. Severe depression with suicidal ideation, the therapist calls it.”

“Therapist?” Nicky asked.

“Yes. Copley helped me find one. He’s quite good. I have to...bend the truth of my issues sometimes, but the heart is there.” Booker took a sip of his drink, then paused. “I...it’s seltzer and lime. Would either of you care for one?”

Joe blinked. “No vodka?”

Booker shook his head. “No. Not in a long while now.”

“No, thank you. You were saying.”

“Right. My depression. When Copley brought up the idea of Merrick, I saw a hope for a way out. And in the beginning, I was the only one meant to be involved. Just me. But it kept going wrong. And I had so many chances to turn aside and I didn’t. I kept going. Because I let my need to die matter more than your need to live free.” Booker’s voice broke, and he swallowed hard. “I am so sorry. My pain doesn’t excuse my action or my choices. I hurt the family I had gained in you, hurt the people I love most living in this world. I nearly destroyed what you have together and then I blamed you in my own pain. I can’t take it back. But if I could, I’d trade a thousand extra years in this life to undo it.”

Across from him, Nicky sat with closed eyes, breathing hard. Joe rubbed his own eyes for a long moment.

Booker swallowed against his own tears. “I’m not asking for anything. For a reduction in punishment or an end to the exile. I’m...I’ve been doing okay. Gwyn’s been good for me. This has been good. But I needed you to know how much I regret it and how sorry I am. And if there is anything I can do, anything I can give, to help you heal, it’s yours.”

“Thank you,” Nicky croaked. “For that.”

Joe rose, and Nicky followed him to his feet. “We should let you get to bed.”

“Yeah. And you had a long trip. You must be tired.”

“We’ll be at breakfast.” Nicky reached out, offering Booker a hand. Booker took it, and Nicky squeezed hard, once. “Good night, Booker.”

“Good night.”

Joe opened the door, and the two of them disappeared into the night.

***

In the morning, Booker was unsurprised to find Gwyn and Ioan up at the crack of dawn, working with Gwynedd in his paddock. Nor was he surprised to find Quỳnh watching them, as she had most early mornings since she’d arrived. 

Who he was surprised to find was Andy. He’d expected her to want more sleep now that she was mortal, not less. But she stood back a bit, watching Quỳnh where she sat on the fence and cheered as Gwyn rode Gwynedd around the paddock bareback, controlling his movements with her knees while Ioan stood and called out changes.

“Boss,” he said, ambling up to stand next to her. 

“Book.” She turned, looking at him. “You look good.”

“Thanks. You don’t look so bad yourself.”

“Please. I have grey hair. Do you know how annoying those are with hair this dark?” She shook her fingers through her short cut, and he could just make out one, perhaps two silver strands. “I’ll need a walker next week.”

“Right. How was last night?”

Andy went quiet for a long minute. Then she sighed. “We just held each other. She shakes in her sleep. Still dreams she’s down there. It’s going to be a long road.”

“Maybe taking a break and giving her time would be a good idea.”

“Where?”

“Wales is nice.”

“At St. Gwynog’s home for stray horses, children, and immortals?”

“And chickens. She has chickens coming next week.”

“Fuck,” Andy muttered with a chuckle. Then she sighed. “I think Joe and Nicky could use some time, just them. And Nile was asking Copley about the UK university system last night.”

Booker shrugged. “Ioan could use a couple aunties around the place. He’s only got the one crusty French uncle right now.”

Andy rolled her eyes so hard, Booker worried she’d sprain something. “Right. You okay with that?”

“Fine. He’s a great kid. She’s amazing with him. And I’m a protective uncle who answers his guy questions.” Booker shrugged. “And his weird history questions. Well, me and he sometimes Skypes Uncle James.”

Andy sighed. “At least it’s contained to that. And Manvir.”

“And Manvir’s wife.”

“Motherfucker!”

“She’s cool. You’d like her. And she’s a doctor, Boss,” Booker said with a grin. “You may need that now.”

In the paddock, Gwyn whooped as she managed a tight turn without falling off her horse.

“Do you remember that day at the Thames?” Booker asked, suddenly serious.

“I’m mortal, not senile,” Andy replied. “It was hardly more than a year ago.”

“When I said I’d never see you again, you told me to have faith. Remember?”

“Yeah. I did.”

Booker looked out over the paddock and the hills beyond it. At Ioan and Quỳnh and in the middle, laughing and wild, Gwyn. “I didn’t have faith then. In much of anything. But I think I’ve found it since.”

Andy followed his gaze, and a soft smile filled her face. “Good, Book. I’m glad. There are worse things to have faith in.”

FIN

**Author's Note:**

> So, when I started writing Gwyn, she was a character I expected to tell a single story about and have her go away. And then she set up house.
> 
> I've now written a novel's worth of words about her between the five stories here and the 1 left (maybe two...she's still whispering a few last secrets).
> 
> Her last story is written. It's tough but worth it. I look forward to sharing it as soon as I know if there's one more in between.


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